1783.]

DEBATES.

Mr. MADISON, as first on that committee, informed Congress, that the inaccuracies and errors, consisting of misspelling, foreign idioms, and foreign words, obscurity of the sense, &c., were attended to by the committee, and verbally noted to Congress when their report was under consideration; that the committee did not report in writing, as the task was disagreeable, and the faults were not conceived to be of sufficient weight to affect the ratification. He thought it would be improper to reconsider the act, as had been suggested, for the purpose of suspending it on that account or any other; but had no objection, if Congress were disposed, to instruct Mr. Adams to substitute, with the consent of the other party, a more correct counterpart in the American language. The subject was dropped, nobody seeming inclined to urge it.

On the motion of Mr. RUTLEDGE, and for the purpose of extending the discussion to particular objects of general revenue, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to consider of the most effectual means of restoring public credit; and the proposition relative to general revenue was referred to the committee. Mr. Carroll was elected into the chair, and the proposition taken up.

Mr. BLAND proposed to alter the words of the proposition, so as to make it read establishment of funds "on taxes or duties, to operate generally," &c. This was agreed to as a more correct phraseology. Mr. HAMILTON objected to it at first, supposing, through mistake, that it might exclude the back lands, which was a fund in contemplation of some gentlemen.

Mr. MADISON, having adverted to the jealousy of Mr. RUTLEDGE, of a latent scheme to fix a tax on land according to its quantity, moved that between the words "generally" and "to operate" might be inserted the words "and in just proportion." Mr. WILSON said he had no objection to this amendment, but that it might be referred to the taxes individually, and unnecessarily fetter Congress; since, if the taxes collectively should operate in just proportion, it would be sufficient. He instanced a land-tax and an impost on trade, the former of which might press hardest on the southern, and the latter on the eastern, but both together might distribute the burden pretty uniformly. From this consideration he moved that the words "on the whole" might be prefixed to the words "in just proportion." This amendment to the amendment of Mr. MADISON was seconded by Mr. BOUDINOT, and agreed to without opposition, as was afterwards the whole amendment.

Mr. WILSON, in order to leave the scheme open for the back lands as a fund for paying the public debts, moved that the proposition might be further altered so as to read, indispensably necessary towards doing complete justice," &c. The motion was seconded by Mr. BOUDINOT, and passed without opposition.

The main proposition by Mr. WILSON, as thus amended, then passed without opposition, in the words following:

"That it is the opinion of Congress that the establishment of permanent and adequate funds on taxes or duties, which shall operate generally, and, on the whole, in just proportion, throughout the United States, is indispensably necessary towards doing complete justice to the public creditors, for restoring public credit, and for providing for the future exigencies of the war."

Mr. BLAND proposed, as the only expedient that could produce immediate relief to the public creditors, that Congress should, by a fixed resolution, appropriate to the payment of interest all the moneys which should arise from the requisitions on the states. He thought this would not only give relief to the public creditors, but, by throwing into circulation the stagnant securities, enliven the whole business of taxation. This proposition was not seconded.

Mr. WILSON proceeded to detail to Congress his ideas on the subject of a Continental revenue. He stated the internal debt, liquidated and unliquidated, at 21,000,000 dollars; the foreign debt at 8,000,000 dollars; the actual deficiency of 1782, at 4,000,000 dollars; the probable deficiency of 1783 at 4,000,000 dollars; making, in the whole, 37,000,000 dollars; which, in round numbers, and probably without exceeding the reality, may be called 40,000,000 dollars. The interest of this debt, at six per cent., is 2,400,000 dollars; to which it will be prudent to add 600,000 dollars, which, if the war continues, will be needed, and in case of peace may be applied to a navy. An annual revenue of 3,000,000 of dollars, then, is the sum to be aimed at, and which ought to be under the management of Congress. One of the objects already mentioned, from which this revenue was to be sought, was a poll-tax. This, he thought, was a very proper one, but, unfortunately, the Constitution of Maryland, which forbids this tax, is an insuperable obstacle. Salt he thought a fit article to be taxed, as it is con

sumed in a small degree by all, and in great quantities by none. It had been found so convenient a subject of taxation, that ainong all nations which have a system of revenue it is made a material branch. In England, a considerable sum is raised from it. In France, it is swelled to the sum of 54,000,000 of livres. He thought it would be improper to levy this tax during the war, whilst the price would continue so high; but the necessary fall of price at the conclusion of it would render the tax less sensible to the people. The suspension of this particular tax during the war would not be inconvenient, as it might be set apart for the debt due to France, on which the interest would not be called for during the war. He computed the quantity of salt imported into the United States, annually, at 3,000,000 of bushels, and proposed a duty of one third of a dollar per bushel, which would yield 1,000,000 of dollars. This duty, he observed, would press hardest on the Eastern States, on account of the extraordinary consumption in the fisheries.

The next tax which he suggested was on land. One dollar on every hundred acres, according to the computation of the superintendent of finance, would produce 500,000 dollars. This computation, he was persuaded, might be doubled; since there could not be less than 100,000,000 of acres comprehended within the titles of individuals, which, at one dollar per hundred acres, yields 1,000,000 of dollars. This tax could not be deemed too high, and would bear heaviest, not on the industrious farmer, but on the great landholder. As the tax on salt would fall with most weight on the Eastern States, the equilibrium would be restored by this, which would be most felt by the Middle and Southern States.

The impost on trade was another source of revenue, which, although it might be proper to vary it somewhat, in order to remove particular objections, ought to be again and again urged upon the states by Congress. The office of finance has rated this at 500,000 dollars. He thought a peace would double it, in which case the sum of 3,000,000 would be made up. If these computations, however, should be found to be too high, there will still be other objects which would bear taxation. An excise, he said, had been mentioned. In general, this species of taxation was tyrannical and justly obnoxious, but in certain forms had been found consistent with the policy of the freest states. In Massachusetts, a state remarkably jealous of its liberty, an excise was not only admitted before, but continued since, the revolution. The same was the case with Pennsylvania, also remarkable for its freedom. An excise, if so modified as not to offend the spirit of liberty, may be considered as an object of easy and equal revenue. Wine and imported spirits had borne a heavy excise in other countries, and might be adopted in ours. Coffee is another object which might be included. The amount of these three objects is uncertain, but materials for a satisfactory computation might be procured. These hints and remarks he acknowledged to be extremely imperfect, and that he had been led to make them solely by a desire to contribute his mite towards such a system as would place the finances of the United States on an honorable and prosperous footing.

Mr. GORHAM observed, that the proposition of Mr. Bland, however salutary its tendency might be in the respect suggested, could never be admitted, because it would leave our army to starve, and all our affairs to stagnate, during its immediate. operation. He objected to a duty on salt, as not only bearing too heavily on the Eastern States, but as giving a dangerous advantage to rivals in the fisheries. Salt, he said, exported from England for the fisheries, is exempted particularly from duties. He thought it would be best to confine our attention, for the present, to the impost on trade, which had been carried so far towards an accomplishment, and to remove the objections which had retarded it, by limiting the term of its continuance, leaving to the states the nomination of the collectors, and by making the appropriation of it more specific.

Mr. RUTLEDGE was also for confining our attention to the impost, and to get that before any further attempts were made. In order to succeed in getting it, however, he thought it ought to be asked in a new form. Few of the states had complied with the recommendation of Congress, literally. Georgia had not yet complied. Rhode Island had absolutely refused to comply at all. Virginia, which at first complied but partially, has since rescinded even that partial compliance. After enumerating the several objections urged by the states against the scheme, he proposed, in order to remove them, the following resolution, viz. :

"That it be earnestly recommended to the several states, to impose and levy a duty of five per cent., ad valorem, at the time and place of importation, on all goods, wares, and merchandises,

1:83.]

DEBATES.

of foreign growth and manufacture, which may be imported into the said states, respectively, except goods of the United States or any of them, and a like duty on all prizes and prize goods condemned in the court of admiralty of said states; that the money arising from such duties be paid into the Continental treasury, to be appropriated and applied to the payment of the interest, and to sink the principal, of the money which the United States have borrowed in Europe, and of what they may borrow; for discharging the arrears due to the army, and for the future support of the war, and to no other use or purpose whatsoever; that the said duties be continued for twenty-five years, unless the debts above mentioned be discharged in the mean time, in which case, they shall cease and determine; that the money arising from the said duties, and paid by any state, be passed to the credit of such state on account of its quota of the debt of the United States."

The motion was seconded by Mr. LEE.

Mr. WOLCOTT opposed the motion, as unjust towards those states which, having few or no ports, receive their merchandise through the ports of others; repeating the observation that it is the consumer, and not the importer, who pays the duty. He again animadverted on the conduct of Virginia in first giving, and afterwards withdrawing, her assent to the impost recommended by Congress.

Mr. ELLSWORTH thought it wrong to couple any other objects with the impost; that the states would give this, if any thing; and that, if a land tax or excise were combined with it, the whole scheme would fail. He thought, however, that some modification of the plan recommended by Congress would be necessary. He supposed, when the benefits of this Continental revenue should be experienced, it would incline the states to concur in making additions to it. He abetted the opposition of Mr. Wolcott to the motion of Mr. Rutledge, which proposed that each state should be credited for the duties collected within its ports; dwelt on the injustice of it; said that Connecticut, before the revolution, did not import one fiftieth, perhaps not one hundredth, part of the merchandise consumed within it, and pronounced that such a plan would never be agreed to. He concurred in the expediency of new-modelling the scheme of the impost by defining the period of its continuance; by leaving to the state the nomination, and to Congress the appointment, of collectors, or vice versa, and by a more determinate appropriation of the The first object to which it ought to be applied was, he thought, the embroil foreign debt. This object claimed a preference, as well from the hope of facilitating further aids from that quarter as from the disputes in which a failure the United States. The prejudice against making a provision for foreign debts which should not include the domestic ones was, he thought, unjust, and might be for proper satisfied by immediately requiring a tax, in discharge of which loan-office certificates should be receivable. State funds, for the domestic debts, would be subsequent consideration. He added, as a further objection against crediting the states for the duties on trade respectively collected by them, that a mutual jealousy of injuring their trade by being foremost in imposing such a duty would prevent any from making a beginning.

revenue.

measure.

may

Mr. WILLIAMSON said, that Mr. Rutledge's motion, at the same time that it removed some objections, introduced such as would be much more fatal to the He was sensible of the necessity of some alterations, particularly in its But the crediting the states, .duration, and the appointment of the collectors. severally, for the amount of their collections, was so palpably unjust and injurious, that he thought candor required that it should not be persisted in. He was of opinion that the interest of the states which trade for others also required it, since such an abuse of the advantage possessed by them would compel the states for which they trade to overcome the obstacles of nature, and provide supplies for themselves. North Carolina, he said, would probably be supplied pretty much through Virginia, if the latter forbore to levy a tax on the former; but in case she did not forbear, the ports of North Carolina, which are nearly as deep as those of Holland, might, and probably would, be substituted. The profits drawn by the more commercial states, from the business they carry on for the others, were of themselves sufficient, and ought to satisfy them.

Mr. RAMSAY differed entirely from his colleague, Mr. Rutledge. He thought that, as the consumer pays the tax, the crediting the states collecting the impost unjust. North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut, would suffer by such a regulation, and would never agree to it,

Mr. BLAND was equally against the regulation. He thought it replete with injustice, and repugnant to every idea of finance. He observed, that this point had 6

VOL. V.

been fully canvassed, at the time when the impost was originally recommended by Congress, and finally exploded. He was, indeed, he said, opposed to the whole motion of Mr. Rutledge. Nothing would be a secure pledge to creditors that was not placed out of the control of the grantors. As long as it was in the power of the states to repeal their grants, in this respect, suspicions would prevail, and would prevent loans. Money ought to be appropriated by the states as it is by the Parliament of Great Britain. He proposed that the revenue to be solicited from the states should be irrevocable by them without the consent of Congress or of nine of the states. He disapproved of any determinate limitation to the continuance of the revenue, because the continuance of the debt could not be fixed, and that was the only rule that could be proper or satisfactory. He said he should adhere to these ideas in the face of the act of Virginia repealing her assent to the impost; that it was trifling with Congress to enable them to contract debts, and to withhold from them the means of fulfilling their contracts.

Mr. LEE said, he seconded the motion of Mr. Rutledge, because he thought it most likely to succeed; that he was persuaded the states would not concur in the impost on trade without a limitation of time affixed to it. With such a limitation, and the right of collection, he thought Virginia, Rhode Island, and the other states, probably would concur. The objection of his colleague, Mr. Bland, he conceived to be unfounded. No act of the states could be irrevocable, because, if so called, it might, notwithstanding, be repealed. But he thought there would be no danger of a repeal, observing that the national faith was all the security that was given in other countries, or that could be given. He was sensible that something was, of necessity, to be done in the present alarming crisis, and was willing to strike out the clause crediting the states for their respective collections of the revenue on trade, as it was supposed that it would impede the measure.

Mr. HAMILTON disliked every plan that made but partial provision for the public debts, as an inconsistent and dishonorable departure from the declaration made by Congress on that subject. He said, the domestic creditors would take the alarm at any distinctions unfavorable to their claims; that they would withhold their influence from any such measures recommended by Congress; and that it must be principally from their influence on their respective legislatures, that success could be expected to any application from Congress for a general revenue.

THURSDAY, January 30.

The answer to the memorials from the legislature of Pennsylvania was agreed to as it stands on the Journal, New Jersey alone dissenting.

In the course of its discussion, several expressions were struck out which seemed to reprehend the states for the deficiency of their contributions. In favor of these expressions, it was urged that they were true, and ought to be held forth as the cause of the public difficulties, in justification of Congress. On the other side, it was urged that Congress had, in many respects, been faulty as well as the states particularly in letting their finances become so disordered before they began to apply any remedy; and that, if this were not the case, it would be more prudent to address to the states a picture of the public distresses and danger than a satire on their faults; since the latter would only irritate them, whereas the former would tend to lead them into the measures supposed by Congress to be essential to the public interest.

The propriety of mentioning to the legislature of Pennsylvania the expedient, into which Congress had been driven, of drawing bills on Spain and Holland without previous warrant, the disappointment attending it, and the deductions ultimately ensuing from the aids destined to the United States by the court of France, was also a subject of discussion. On one side, it was represented as a fact which, being dishonorable to Congress, ought not to be proclaimed by them, and that in the present case it could answer no purpose. On the other side, it was contended that it was already known to all the world; that, as a glaring proof of the public embarrassments, it would impress the legislature with the danger of making those separate appropriations which would increase the embarrassments; and particularly would explain, in some degree, the cause of the discontinuance of the French interest due on the loan-office certificates.

Mr. RUTLEDGE, and some other members, having expressed less solicitude

about satisfying or soothing the creditors within Pennsylvania, through the legislature, than others thought ought to be felt by every one, Mr. WILSON, adverting to it with some warmth, declared that, if such indifference should prevail, he was little anxious what became of the answer to the memorials. Pennsylvania, he was persuaded, would take her own measures without regard to those of Congress, and that she ought to do so. She was willing, he said, to sink or swim according to the common fate, but that she would not suffer herself, with a mill-stone of six millions* of the Continental debt about her neck, to go to the bottom alone

FRIDAY, January 31. The instruction to the Virginia delegates from that state, relative to tobacco exported to New York, under passport from the secretary of Congress, was referred to a committee. Mr. FITZSIMMONS moved that the information received from said state of its inability to contribute more than -towards the requisitions of Congress, should be also committed. Mr. BLAND saw no reason for such commitment. Mr. GORHAM was in favor of it. He thought such a resolution from Virginia was of the most serious import, especially if compared with her withdrawal of her assent to the impost. He said, with much earnestness, that, if one state should be connived at in such defaults, others would think themselves entitled to a like indulgence. Massachusetts, he was sure, had a better title to it than Virginia. He said the former had expended immense sums in recruiting her line, which composed almost the whole northern army; that one million two hundred thousand pounds (a dollar at six shillings) had been laid out; and that without this sum the army would have been disbanded.

Mr. FITZSIMMONS, abetting the animadversions on Virginia, took notice that of dollars, required by Congress from her for the year 1782, she had paid the paltry sum of thirty-five thousand dollars, and was, notwithstanding, endeavoring to play off from further contributions. The commitment took place without opposition. The sub-committee, consisting of Mr. Madison, Mr. Carroll, and Mr. Wilson, had this morning a conference with the superintendent of finance, on the best mode of estimating the value of land throughout the United States. The superintendent was no less puzzled on the subject than the committee had been. He thought some essay ought to be made for executing the Confederation, if it should be practicable; and if not, to let the impracticability appear to the states. He concurred with the sub-committee, also, in opinion, that it would be improper to refer the valuation to the states, as mutual suspicions of partiality, if not a real partiality, would render the result a source of discontent; and that even if Congress should expressly reserve to themselves a right of revising and rejecting it, such a right could not be exercised without giving extreme offence to the suspected party. To guard against these difficulties it was finally agreed, and the sub-committee accordingly reported to the grand committee,—

That it is expedient to require of the several states a return of all surveyed and granted land within each of them; and that, in such returns, the land be distinguished into occupied and unoccupied.

"That it also was expedient to appoint one commissioner for each state, who should be empowered to proceed, without loss of time, into the several states, and to estimate the value of the lands therein, according to the returns above mentioned, and to such instructions as should, from time to time, be given him for that purpose."

This report was hurried in to the grand committee for two reasons; first, it was found that Mr. Rutledge, Mr. Bland, and several others, relied so much on a valua tion of land, and connected it so essentially with measures for restoring public credit, that an extreme backwardness on their part affected all these measures, whilst the valuation of land was left out. A second reason was, that the sub-committee were afraid that suspicions might arise of intentional delay, in order to confine the attention of Congress to general funds, as affording the only prospect of relief.

The grand committee, for like reasons, were equally impatient to make a report to Congress; and accordingly, after a short consultation, the question was taken, whether the above report of the sub-committee, or the report referred to them, should be preferred. In favor of the first were Mr. Wilson, Mr. Carroll, Mr. Madison, Mr.

* He supposed that sum due, by the United States, to citizens of Pennsylvania, for loans.