been twice inserted into the Constitution—certainly a rare if not an unique thing; but a perfectly understandable thing to those who comprehend their true "genesis."
When one remembers what the Founders had just experienced, the liberality with which they granted consent to taxation is astounding. But there was one point where they would not yield,—where their actual experience had demonstrated the tyranny and oppression that was too sure to come, even where power of consent was held by their own kin and nationality, if those controlling such power were too distantly separated from them.
Blessed and happy, under the precautions the Fathers took to safeguard us, we have forgotten how they had suffered for want of such protection. We have lost both the learning and the knowledge which they had achieved through bitterest experiences. The Fathers, being great readers of Montesquieu, who, also, had pointed out the difficulty of a great Republic even continuing to exist at all, naturally feared what was the explanation proven by their own experience. Even Hamilton, though he felt a Republican Government was the only possibility, "expressed his despair of the practicability of establishing a Republican Government over so extensive a country as the United States."
But the solution found proved as simple as it was effective. Indirect taxation need not be feared, as had been proven by the failure of the British attempts, it being under the control of all citizens combining to abstain from the use of the taxed articles; but, which with a great and free people, would afford ample revenue not only to make the government rich, but dangerously rich, for enormous revenue is inevitably a temptation to
