is a power to lay them, that they will actually be laid? Every State in the Union has power to impose taxes of this kind; and yet in several of them they are unknown in practice. Are the State Governments to be stigmatized as tyrannies, because they possess this power? If they are not, with what propriety can the like power justify such a charge against the National Government, or even be urged as an obstacle to its adoption? As little friendly as I am to the species of imposition, I still feel a thorough conviction that the power of having recourse to it ought to exist in the Fœderal Government. There are certain emergencies of nations, in which expedients, that in the ordinary state of things ought to be forborne, become essential to the public weal. And the Government, from the possibility of such emergencies, ought ever to have the option of making use of them. The real scarcity of objects in this country, which may be considered as productive sources of revenue, is a reason peculiar to itself, for not abridging the discretion of the National councils in this respect. There may exist certain critical and tempestuous conjunctures of the State, in which a poll-tax may become an inestimable resource. And as I know nothing to exempt this portion of the globe from the common calamities that have befallen other parts of it, I acknowledge my aversion to every project that is calculated to disarm the Government of a single weapon, which in any possible contingency might be usefully employed for the general defence and security.
PUBLIUS.
NOTE: The standard modern numbering of the articles that make up the Federalist, as maintained in Wikisource's version, requires that first full paragraph on Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/382 be moved to the end of this article, as shown in The Federalist Papers/No. 36. To make changes, go to Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/382.
