brought the argument in support of the "unlimited" theory to a reductio ad absurdum:
"A power to lay taxes for the common defense and general welfare of the United States is not in common sense a general power." It is "a power exclusively given to raise revenue, and it can constitutionally be applied to no other purpose. The application for other purposes is an abuse of the power; and in fact, however it may be in form disguised, is a premeditated usurpation of authority." A grant under the Constitution to Congress " to do any act they pleased which ought to be for the good of the Union . . . would reduce the whole instrument to a single phase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of good or evil, it would also be a power to do whatever evil they pleased" (1 Story, Constitution, section 926).
Second, to the assumption that the decisions of the State courts in respect to the limitations of the power of taxation do not apply to this controversy, it was replied that the relation of the State courts to their State Constitutions is substantially the same as that existing between the Federal Supreme Court and Congress; that the State decisions (which have not been, as was claimed, "all cases of municipal taxation") frequently treat such legislation, independently of Constitutions, as being in violation of natural right, and that there are limitations imposed upon legislative, power by reason of "general principles" has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court (Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 12 Wallace). It would further seem that natural rights must be the same, whether against legislation by Congress or by the Legislature of a State. If a State can not levy and expend taxes for other than public purposes, it may be presumed, a fortiori, that the national Government can not, "for the former can do anything which the Constitution (and natural right) do not forbid; while the latter can do nothing which the Constitution does not first sanction." The Federal Government has "no right to raise money by taxation for a thousand things for which the State may impose taxes and collect them of the people" (Miller, Justice, Lectures on the Constitution).
Third, in respect to the instances cited, in which Congress has expended moneys for bounties, or relief of private interests, in this and other countries, it was replied that they were all matters of national charity; were never subjected to judicial scrutiny, or even seriously challenged in debate; were never for large amounts, and did not contemplate any special levy of taxes, but were from funds already in the Treasury. It was also claimed that this was the first case in which the constitutionality of a congressional bounty, whether direct or indirect, for "protection," has ever been
