ND SUPREMACY. But it
will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which
are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions
of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the
supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and
will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause
which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one
we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows
immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal
government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that
it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE
CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the
convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood,
though it had not been expressed.

Though a law, therefore, laying a tax for the use of the United States
would be supreme in its nature, and could not legally be opposed or
controlled, yet a law for abrogating or preventing the collection of
a tax laid by the authority of the State, (unless upon imports and
exports), would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation
of power not granted by the Constitution. As far as an improper
accumulation of taxes on the same object might tend to render
the collection difficult or precarious, this would be a mutual
inconvenience, not arising from a superiority or defect of power on
either side, but from an injudicious exercise of power by one or the
other, in a manner equally disadvantageous to both. It is to be hoped
and presumed, however, that mutual interest would dictate a concert in
this respect which would avoid any material inconvenience. The inference
from the whole is, that the individual States would, under the proposed
Constitution, retain an independent and uncontrollable authority to
raise revenue to any extent of which they may stand in need, by every
kind of taxation, except duties on imports and exports. It will be shown
in the next paper that this CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of
taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination,
in respect to this branch of power, of the State authority to that of
the Union.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 34

The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From The Independent Journal. Saturday, January 5, 1788.

HAMILTON

To the Peo