Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/330

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186
The Fœderalist.

empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State Governments, to take measures for their own defence, with all the celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.

PUBLIUS.


[From the New York Packet, Friday, December 28, 1787.]


THE FŒDERALIST. No. XXIX.



To the People of the State of New York:

IT has been already observed, that the Fœderal Government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the National forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the National civil list; for the payment of the National debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the National treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the Government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential