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government should be able to fulfil its engagements, it was endowed with an unlimited power of levying taxes.[1]
In examining the balance of power as established by the federal constitution; in remarking on the one hand the portion of sovereignty which has been reserved to the several states, and on the other the share of power which the Union has assumed, it is evident that the federal legislators entertained the clearest and most accurate notions on the nature of the centralization of government. The United States form not only a republic, but a confederation; nevertheless the authority of the nation is more central than it was in several of the monarchies of Europe when the American constitution was formed. Take, for instance, the two following examples:—
Thirteen supreme courts of justice existed in France, which, generally speaking, had the right of interpreting the law without appeal; and those provinces, styled pays d'états, were authorized to refuse their assent to an impost which had been levied by the sovereign who represented the nation.
In the Union there is but one tribunal to interpret, as there is one legislature to make the laws; and an impost voted by the representatives of the nation is binding upon all the citizens.
In these two essential points, therefore, the Union exercises more central authority than the French monarchy possessed, although the Union is only an assemblage of confederate republics.
In Spain certain provinces had the right of establishing a system of customhouse duties peculiar to themselves, although that privilege belongs, by its very nature, to the national sovereignty. In America the congress alone has the right of regulating the commercial relations of the states. The government of the confederation is therefore more centralized in this respect than the kingdom of Spain. It is true that the power of the crown in France or in Spain was always able to obtain by force whatever the constitution of the country denied, and that the ultimate result was consequently the same; but I am here discussing the theory of the constitution.
- ↑ Constitution, sect. 8, 9, and 10. Federalist, Nos. 30-36 inclusive, and 41-44. Kent's Commentaries, vol. i. pp. 207 and 381. Story, pp. 329 and 514.
