It has been supposed that with all the reductions in our revenue which
could be speedily effected by Congress without injury to the substantial
interests of the country there might be for some years to come a surplus
of moneys in the Treasury, and that there was in principle no objection
to returning them to the people by whom they were paid. As the literal
accomplishment of such an object is obviously impracticable, it was
thought admissible, as the nearest approximation to it, to hand them
over to the State governments, the more immediate representatives of
the people, to be by them applied to the benefit of those to whom they
properly belonged. The principle and the object were to return to the
people an unavoidable surplus of revenue which might have been paid by
them under a system which could not at once be abandoned, but even this
resource, which at one time seemed to be almost the only alternative to
save the General Government from grasping unlimited power over internal
improvements, was suggested with doubts of its constitutionality.
But this bill assumes a new principle. Its object is not to return to
the people an unavoidable surplus of revenue paid in by them, but to
create a surplus for distribution among the States.
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