Do not allow yourselves, my
fellow-citizens, to be misled on this subject. The Federal Government
can not collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the
principles of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been
granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and if persisted in
will inevitably lead to corruption, and must end in ruin. The surplus
revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people--from the farmer,
the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society; but who will receive
it when distributed among the States, where it is to be disposed of by
leading State politicians, who have friends to favor and political
partisans to gratify? It will certainly not be returned to those who
paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to
it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General
Government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It
has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes
enumerated in the Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed
these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people
so far lightened.
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