from the more obvious and awful consequences of their entire separation into independent sovereignties, it is worthy of special consideration, that, divided from each other as they must be by narrow waters and territorial lines merely, the facility of surreptitious introductions of contraband articles would defeat every attempt at revenue, in the easy and indirect modes of impost and excise: so that, whilst their expenditures would be necessarily and vastly increased by their new situation, they would, in providing for them, be limited to direct taxes on land or other property, to arbitrary assessments on invisible funds, and to the odious tax on persons.
You will observe that I have confined myself, in what has been said, to the constitutionality and expediency of the power in Congress to encourage domestic products by regulations of commerce. In the exercise of the power, they are responsible to their constituents, whose right and duty it is, in that as in all other cases, to bring their measures to the test of justice and of the general good.
With great esteem and cordial respect,
| Jos. C. Cabell, Esq. | JAMES MADISON. |
LETTER II.
In my letter of September 18th, I stated briefly the grounds on which I rested my opinion, that a power to impose duties and restrictions on imports, with a view to encourage domestic productions, was constitutionally lodged in Congress. In the observations then made was involved the opinion, also, that the power was properly there lodged. As this last opinion necessarily implies that there are cases in which this power may be usefully exercised by Congress,—the only body within our political system capable of exercising it with effect,—you may think it incumbent on me to point out cases of that description.
I will premise that I concur in the opinion, that, as a general rule, individuals ought to be deemed the best judges of the best application of their industry and resources.
I am ready to admit, also, that there is no country in which the application may, with more safety, be left to the intelligence and enterprise of individuals, than the United Slates.
Finally, I shall not deny, that, in all doubtful cases, it becomes every government to lean rather to a confidence in the judgment of individuals, than to interpositions controlling the free exercise of it.
With all these concessions, I think it can be satisfactorily shown that there are exceptions to the general rule, now expressed by the phrase "Let us alone," forming cases which call for the interposition of the competent authority, and which are not inconsistent with the generality of the rule.
1. The theory of "Let us alone" supposes that all nations concur in a perfect freedom of commercial intercourse. Were this the case, they would, in a commercial view, be but one nation, as much as the several districts composing a particular nation; and the theory would be as applicable to the former as to the latter. But this golden age of free trade has not yet arrived; nor is there a single nation that has set the example. No nation can, indeed, safely do so, until a reciprocity, at least, be insured to it. Take, for a proof, the familiar case of the navigation employed in a foreign commerce. If a nation, adhering to the rule of never interposing a countervailing protection of its vessels, admits foreign vessels into its ports free of duty, whilst its own vessels are subject to a duty in foreign ports, the ruinous effect is so obvious, that the warmest advocate for the theory in question must shrink from a universal application of it.
A nation leaving its foreign trade, in all cases, to regulate itself, might soon find it regulated, by other nations, into a subserviency to a foreign interest. In the interval between the peace of 1783 and the establishment of the present Constitution of the United States, the want of a general authority to regulate trade is known to have had this consequence. And have not the pretensions and policy latterly exhibited by Great Britain given warning of a like result from a renunciation of all countervailing regulations on the part of the United
