Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/436

§ 954. Having endeavoured to point out the leading distinctions between direct and indirect taxes, and that duties, imposts, and excises, in the sense of the constitution, belong to the latter class, the order of the subject would naturally lead us to the inquiry, why direct taxes are required to be governed by the rule of apportionment; and why "duties, imposts, and excises" are required to be uniform throughout the United States. The answer to the former will be given, when we come to the farther examination of certain prohibitory and restrictive clauses of the constitution on the subject of taxation. The answer to the latter may be given in a few words. It was to cut oft all undue preferences of one state over another in the regulation of subjects affecting their common interests. Unless duties, imposts, and excises were uniform, the grossest and most oppressive inequalities, vitally affecting the pursuits and employments of the people of different states, might exist. The agriculture, commerce, or manufactures of one state might be built up on the ruins of those of another; and a combination of a few states in congress might secure a monopoly of certain branches of trade and business to themselves, to the injury, if not to the destruction, of their less favoured neighbours. The constitution throughout all its provisions is an instrument of checks, and restraints, as well as of powers. It does not rely on confidence in the general government to preserve the interests of all the states. It is founded in a wholesome and strenuous jealousy, which, foreseeing the possibility of mischief, guards with solicitude against any exercise of power, which may endanger the states, as far as it is practicable. If this provision, as to uniformity of duties, had been omitted, although the power might never have been abused to the injury of the