to be permanent, to calculate, not
on temporary, but on permanent causes of expense. If this principle be a
just one our attention would be directed to a provision in favor of
the State governments for an annual sum of about two hundred thousand
pounds; while the exigencies of the Union could be susceptible of no
limits, even in imagination. In this view of the subject, by what logic
can it be maintained that the local governments ought to command, in
perpetuity, an EXCLUSIVE source of revenue for any sum beyond the
extent of two hundred thousand pounds? To extend its power further, in
EXCLUSION of the authority of the Union, would be to take the resources
of the community out of those hands which stood in need of them for the
public welfare, in order to put them into other hands which could have
no just or proper occasion for them.

Suppose, then, the convention had been inclined to proceed upon the
principle of a repartition of the objects of revenue, between the Union
and its members, in PROPORTION to their comparative necessities; what
particular fund could have been selected for the use of the States, that
would not either have been too much or too little too little for their
present, too much for their future wants? As to the line of separation
between external and internal taxes, this would leave to the States, at
a rough computation, the command of two thirds of the resources of the
community to defray from a tenth to a twentieth part of its expenses;
and to the Union, one third of the resources of the community, to defray
from nine tenths to nineteen twentieths of its expenses. If we desert
this boundary and content ourselves with leaving to the States an
exclusive power of taxing houses and lands, there would still be a great
disproportion between the MEANS and the END; the possession of one third
of the resources of the community to supply, at most, one tenth of its
wants. If any fund could have been selected and appropriated, equal to
and not greater than the object, it would have been inadequate to the
discharge of the existing debts of the particular States, and would have
left them dependent on the Union for a provision for this purpose.

The preceding train of observation will justify the position which has
been elsewhere laid down, that "A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the
article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire
subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State author