one year (1878) revenue to the extent of only five cents, accruing from the importation of only one pound of copper, was collected. The legislators who enacted the law productive of such a result might have pleaded in justification that revenue was their intent;[1] but when a brief experience had proved that the taxing power had been used to prevent the raising of revenue by the state, and for a different purpose, it was evident that a continuance of the policy (and the tax was long retained) was in effect a justification and an indorsement of it. To complete the illustration, it should be further pointed out that the result of this perversion of the taxing power was to enable the owners of copper mines in the United States, especially certain ones of unprecedented richness—formerly the property of the United States, but sold for a mere song—to extort for a period of years from the people of the whole country the sum of five cents for every pound of copper they consumed, but from which exaction (aggregating millions) the people of other countries, who consumed the large surplus product of American copper exported, were exempt, as the tax laws of all countries have no extra-territorial jurisdiction. During the discussion and defense of this tariff enacted in 1890, however, all pretense and evasion were discarded, and the position openly taken that the Government could rightfully levy taxes, not for the purpose of raising revenue, and not to subserve any necessity of the state, and under the name of protection delegate to private or corporate interests the right to collect and appropriate them.
It has been contended by authorities worthy of all respect (the late George Ticknor Curtis, for example) that there is no perversion of the taxing power in the levy of duties on imports by the Federal Government for purposes other than revenue, for the reason that "duties are not taxes, but assessments, in the nature of tribute imposed on merchandise imported from other countries," and that "when the Government levies duties on foreign products," under the provision of the Constitution that "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," "it dues not exercise or pretend to exercise its taxing power."
In answer to this it is to be said, first, that the application of different names to one and the same act does not alter the nature of the act; second, that usage and authorities among all nations and at all times are in unison in regarding such terms as imposts, duties, excises, customs, tolls, gabbele, talliage, tribute, and the like, when
- ↑ The United States Supreme Court has held that the judicial power can not inquire into the intentions of Congress in imposing a tax; and that, if injustice is done, the only remedy is an appeal to the legislative power that has inflicted it.
