ment, and would tend to correct and enlighten the morals of the citizens." (First Municipality vs. New Orleans Theater Company, 2 Rob., Louisiana, 209.)
The Bounty Case of 1891.—A review of this department of the application of taxation would be incomplete that failed to notice a legal contention before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1891, respecting the constitutionality of the tariff act of 1890, which was questioned on several grounds; one of them being a provision requiring the payment of bounties to every producer of sugar of certain saccharine strength[1] from beet, sorghum, sugar cane, or maple sap, grown or produced within the United States. Under this provision of the tariff enactment of 1890, the citizen of Connecticut was taxed for the benefit of the farmer of Nebraska or California, and the farmer of New York for the benefit of the Louisiana planter; the farmer who raised wheat and corn at ten or twelve dollars an acre was taxed for the benefit of a farmer in a distant State who raised sugar cane or sugar beets at fifty or a hundred dollars an acre. There was, moreover, but little doubt that the inclusion of sugar, made from maple sap, in the bounty provision, was not originally contemplated by the originators and promoters of the act; inasmuch as the manufacture of such sugar is one of the most profitable industries of the country, and as a rule readily calls for a fancy or artificial price; but was included in the act, while under consideration by Congress, for the reason that its enactment into law would otherwise have been difficult or impossible. Another interesting and anomalous feature of this case was that it originated in an attempt to obtain the bounty after the enactment (law) offering it was repealed, on the ground that the claimants planted cane in expectation of the continuance of the bounty, and would suffer loss if they did not get it. The question of the validity of the entire tariff act, by reason of the unconstitutionality of the bounty provision contained in it, having been raised, the attorney general of the United States antagonized such assumption before the court as follows:
First, that under the clause of the Federal Constitution (section 8 of Article I) which empowers Congress to levy taxes, duties, etc., "to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare" of the United States, Congress has the power to expend taxes for anything which, in its judgment, is "for the general welfare." Second, that the judicial decisions of the State courts, to the effect that taxation, to be lawful, must be for public purposes, have no application to this controversy, inasmuch as they were all of them
- ↑ Two cents per pound on sugar testing not less than 90° by the polariscope, and one and three fourths cents per pound on sugar testing less than 90°, but not less than 80°.
