The Economic Policies of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton Alexander
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the officers to be employed are to be clothed with no such summary jurisdiction, and their discretionary power of visiting and searching is to be restricted to those places which the dealers themselves shall designate by public insignia or marks as the depositories of the articles on which the duties are to be laid. Hence, it is one of the recommendations of the plan, that it is not liable to those objections.
Duties of the kind proposed are not novel in the United States, as has been intimated in another place. They have existed, to a considerable extent, under several of the State governments, particularly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. In Connecticut, a State exemplary for its attachment to popular principles, not only all ardent spirits, but foreign articles of consumption generally, have been the subjects of an excise or inland duty.
If the supposition, that duties of this kind are attended with greater expense in the collection than taxes on lands, should seem an argument for preferring the latter, it may be observed that the fact ought not too readily to be taken for granted. The state of things in England is sometimes referred to as an example on this point, but there the smallness of the expense in the collection of the land-tax is to be ascribed to the peculiar modification of it, which proceeding without new assessments according to a fixed standard long since adjusted, totally disregards the comparative value of lands and the variations in their value. The consequence of this is an inequality so palpable and extreme as would be likely to be ill relished by the landholders of the United States. If, in pursuit of greater equality, accurate periodical valuations or assessments are to afford a rule, it may well be doubted whether the expense of a land-tax will not always exceed that of the kind of duties proposed. The ingenious, but fallacious hypothesis, that all taxes on consumption fall finally with accumulated weight on land, is now too generally and too satisfactorily exploded to require to be combated here. It has become an acknowledged truth that, in the operation of those taxes, every species of capital and industry contribute their proportion to the revenue, and consequently that, as far as they can be made substitutes for taxes on lands, they serve to exempt them from an undue share of the public burthen.
Among other substantial reasons which recommend, as a provision for the public debt, duties upon articles of consumption, in preference to taxes on houses and lands, is this: It is very desirable, if practicable, to reserve the latter fund for objects and occasions which will more immediately interest the sensibility of the whole community, and more directly affect the public safety. It will be a consolatory reflection, that so capital a resource remains untouched by that provision, which, while it will have a very material influence in favor of public credit, will also be conducive to the tranquillity of the public mind, in respect to external danger, and will really operate as a powerful guarantee of peace. In proportion as the estimation of our resources is exalted in the eyes of foreign nations, their respect for us must increase, and this must beget a proportionable caution, neither to insult nor injure us with levity; while, on the contrary, the appearance of exhausted resources (which would, perhaps, be a consequence of mortgaging the revenue to be derived from land, for the interest of the public debt) might tend to invite both insult and injury, by inspiring an opinion that our efforts to resent or repel them were little to be dreaded.
It may not be unworthy of reflection that, while the idea of residuary resources, in so striking a particular, cannot fail to have many beneficial consequences, the suspension of taxes on real estate can as little fail to be pleasing to the mass of the community; and it may reasonably be presumed that so provident a forbearance on the part of the Government will insure a more cheerful acquiescence on that of the class of the community immediately to be affected, whenever experience and the exigency of conjunctures shall dictate a resort to that species of revenue.
But, in order to be at liberty to pursue this salutary course, it is indispensable that an efficacious use should be made of those articles of consumption which are the most proper and most productive, to which class distilled spirits very evidently belong; and a prudent energy will be requisite, as well in relation to the mode of collection as to the quantum of the duty.
It need scarcely be observed that the duties on the great mass of imported articles have reached a point which it would not be expedient to exceed. There is at least satisfactory evidence that they cannot be extended further without contravening the sense of the body of the merchants; and, though it is not to be admitted, as a general rule, that this circumstance ought to conclude against the expediency of a public measure, yet, when due regard is had to the disposition which that enlightened class of our citizens has manifested toward the National Government, to the alacrity with which they have hitherto seconded its operations, to the accommodating temper with which they look forward to those additional impositions on the objects of trade, which are to commence with the ensuing year, and to the greatness of the innovation, which, in this particular, has already taken place in the former state of things, there will be perceived to exist the most solid reasons against lightly passing the bounds which coincide with their impressions of what is reasonable and proper. It would be, in every view, inauspicious to give occasion for a supposition that trade alone is destined to feel the immediate weight of the hands of Government in every new emergency of the treasury.
However true, as a general position, that the consumer pays the duty, yet, it will not follow that trade may not be essentially distressed and injured, by carrying duties on importations to a height which is disproportionate to the mercantile capital of a country. It may not only be the cause of diverting too large a share of it from the exigencies of business, but, as the requisite advances to satisfy the duties, will, in many, if not in most cases, precede the receipts from the sale of the articles on which they are laid, the consequence will often be sacrifices which the merchant cannot afford to make.
The inconveniences of exceeding the proper limit in this respect, which will be felt everywhere, will fall with particular severity on those places which have not the advantage of public banks, and which abound least in pecuniary resources. Appearances do not justify such an estimate of the extent of the mercantile capital of the United States as to encourage to material accumulations on the already considerable rates of the duties on the mass of foreign importation.
Another motive for caution on this point arises from the reflection that the effect of an important augmentation made by a law of the last session is, hitherto, a mere matter of speculative calculation, and has not yet even begun to be tried.
It is presumable, too, that a still further augmentation would have an influence the reverse of favorable to the public credit. The operation would be apt to be regarded as artificial, as destitute of solidity, as presenting a numerical increase, but involving an actual diminution of revenue. The distrust of the efficacy of the present provision might also be accompanied with a doubt of a better substitute hereafter. The inference would not be unnatural, that a defect of other means, or an inability to command them, could alone have given birth to so unpromising an effort to draw all from one source.
A diversification of the nature of the funds is desirable on other accounts. It is clear that less dependence can be placed on one species of funds, and that, too, liable to the vicissitude of the continuance or interruption of foreign intercourse, than from a variety of different funds, formed by the union of internal with external objects.
The inference from these various and important considerations seems to be, that the attempt to extract wholly, from duties on imported articles, the sum necessary to a complete provision for the public debt would probably be both deceptive and pernicious—incompatible with the interests not less of revenue than of commerce; that resources of a different kind must, of necessity, be explored; and that the selection of the most fit objects is the only thing which ought to occupy inquiry.
Besides the establishment of supplementary funds, it is requisite to the support of the public credit that those established should stand on a footing which will give all reasonable assurance of their effectual collection.
Among the articles enumerated in the act making further provision for the payment of the debt of the United States there are two, wines and teas, in regard to which some other regulations than have yet been adopted seem necessary for the security of the revenue and desirable for the accommodation of the merchant.
With these views it is submitted that the term for the payment of the duties on