Be this as it may, the distribution of property (wealth) among the people of the American States at the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, as shown by the debates in the Constitutional Convention, was, very curiously, such that an apportionment of taxes according to population and representation was not inequitable. When the subject was under discussion, Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, said he "thought the number of people alone the best rule for measuring wealth as well as representation" (Elliot's Debates, v, 297). Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, "supported the propriety of establishing numbers as the rule. He said that in Massachusetts estimates had been taken in the different towns, and that persons had been curious enough to compare these estimates with the respective numbers of people, and it had been found, even including Boston, that the most exact proportions prevailed between numbers and property" (ibid., 300). Mr. Wilson, a leading member from Pennsylvania, said that, "taking the same number of people in the aggregate in the western settlements of Pennsylvania and in the city of Philadelphia, he believed there would be little difference in their wealth and ability to contribute to the public wants" (ibid., 301). Dr. Johnson, of Connecticut, "thought that wealth and population were the true, equitable rules of representation; but he conceived that these two principles resolved themselves into one, population being the best measure of wealth" (ibid., 303). And when the vote came to be taken in the Federal Convention on the proposition that direct taxation ought to be proportioned to representation, it passed without opposition (ibid., 302).
In the five occasions—1798, 1813, 1815, 1816, and 1861—in which the Federal Government has established a general system of direct taxation, there has been no essential and radical difference of opinion in respect to the methods and instrumentalities by which the provisions of the enactments could be made effective for the purpose of raising revenue. The amount of money desirable to raise was first determined. Then the population of each State was taken, according to the latest preceding census, and the proportion of tax proceeds respectively due was calculated.[1] A statute was then passed declaring that each State should pay to the Federal Treasury so much money, according to their ascertained proportionate liability of the aggregate amount which the entire Union of the States was required to raise. In each of the first four cases of such a system of taxation the several States were empowered to assume or assess in their own way
- ↑ Up to and including the direct tax of 1861, its imposition was scrupulously made in accordance with the understanding of the framers of the Constitution. Thus, the ratio of the State of New York in 1861 was returned at $2,602,91828.
