No objection ought to arise to this construction from a supposition that it would imply a power to do whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the general welfare. A power to appropriate money with this latitude, which is granted, too, in express terms would not carry a power to do any other thing not authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implication.
5. Premiums.
These are of, a nature allied to bounties, though distinguishable from them in some important features.
Bounties are applicable to the whole quantity of an article produced or manufactured or exported and involve a correspondent expense. Premiums serve to reward some particular excellence or superiority, some extraordinary exertion or skill, and are dispensed only in a small number, of cases. But their effect is to stimulate general effort; contrived so as to be both honorary and lucrative, they address themselves to different passions—touching the chords as well of emulation as of interest. They are, accordingly, a very economical means of exciting the enterprise of a whole community.
There are various societies in different countries whose object is the dispensation of premiums for the encouragement of agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce; and though they are, for the most part, voluntary associations, with comparatively slender funds, their utility has been immense. Much has been done by this means in Great Britain. Scotland, in particular, owes materially to it a prodigious amelioration of condition. From a similar establishment in the United States, supplied and supported by the Government of the Union, vast benefits might reasonably be expected. Some further ideas on this head shall accordingly be submitted in the conclusion of this report.
6. The Exemption of the Materials of Manufacture From Duty.
The policy of that exemption, as a general rule, particularly in reference to new establishments, is obvious. It can hardly ever be advisable to add the obstructions of fiscal burdens to the difficulties which naturally embarrass a new manufacture; and where it is matured and in condition to become an object of revenue, it is, generally speaking, better than the fabric, than the material, should be the subject of taxation. Ideas of proportion between the quantum of the tax and the value of the article can be more easily adjusted in the former than in the latter case. An argument for exemptions of this kind in the United States is to be derived from the practice, as far as their necessities have permitted, of those nations whom we are to meet as competitors in our own and in foreign markets.
There are, however, exceptions to it, of which some examples will be given under the next head.
The laws of the Union afford instances of the observance of this policy here recommended, but it will probably be found advisable to extend it to some other cases. Of a nature bearing some affinity to that policy is the regulation which exempts from duty the tools and implements, as well as the books, clothes, and household furniture, of
