execution of the business, which alone requires the knowledge of local details, must be confided to discreet persons in the character of commissioners or assessors, elected by the people, or appointed by the government for the purpose. All that the law can do, must be to name the persons, or to prescribe the manner of their election or appointment; to fix their numbers and qualifications, and to draw the general outlines of ther powers and duties. And what is there in all this, that cannot as well be performed by the national legislature, as by the state legislature? The attention of either, can only reach to general principles: local details, as already observed, must be referred to those who are to execute the plan.
But there is a simple point of view, in which this matter may be placed, that must be altogether satisfactory. The national legislature can make use of the system of each state within that state. The method of laying and collecting this species of taxes in each state, can, in all its parts, be adopted and employed by the federal government.
Let it be recollected, that the proportion of these taxes is not to be left to the discretion of the national legislature; but it is to be determined by the numbers of each state, as described in the second section of the first article. An actual census, or enumeration of the people, must furnish the rule; a circumstance which effectually shuts the door to partiality or oppression. The abuse of this power of taxation seems to have been provided against with guarded circumspection. In addition to the precaution just mentioned, there is a provision that "all duties imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States."
It has been very properly observed, by different speakers and writers on the side of the constitution, that if the exercise of the power of internal taxation by the union, should be judged beforehand upon mature consideration, or should be discovered on experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may forbear the use of it, and have recourse to requisitions in its stead.
