direction of the union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbour, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of self-preservation, to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.
No. XXX.
BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
Concerning taxation.
IT has been already observed, that the federal
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 matter?
which will call for disbursements out of the national
treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be inter-
woven 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 functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate, supply of revenue, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and in a short course of time perish.
