edness.

For the month of March, 1901, the principal items

(1) The term "consols" is borrowed from England, and is used when a number of loans have been consolidated. The finance law of 1900 allowed the exchange of the three, four, and five per cent. bonds for new two per cent. bonds running until 1930.

(2) This was the loan authorized to meet the expenses of the Spanish-American War. These three per cent. bonds were sold

at par.

(3) The refunding operations of 1877-1879 account for this item of the debt.

(4) The refunding certificates constituted in reality a roundabout way of refunding. See Finance Reports, 1899, cvi.

(5 and 6) These loans were made to obtain gold with which to redeem paper-money obligations (see p. 216).

Money has been borrowed by the government in other ways than by selling bonds, as by the issue of certificates of indebtedness and Treasury notes. These were not essentially different from bonds, but they were usually of smaller denominations and ran for shorter terms. In some cases Treasury notes circulated as money; these are not now in existence and should not be confused with the Treasury notes of 1890 (see p. 215). In some aspects, too, the issue of the legal tenders of Civil War times were a means of borrowing money—a sort of forced loan from the people (see pp. 212, 213).

SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS AND REFERENCES.

1. On the failure of the States to pay their quotas under the Articles of Confederation, see Walker, The Making of the Nation, 8-12; Hart, Formation of the Union, 109–111; Fiske, Critical Period, 104-105, 218-220.

Old Treas

ury notes.

2. The history of our numerous tariff acts may be studied from Taussig, Tariff History of the United States; Walker, The Making of the Nation; Burgess, The Middle Period, and the Civil War and Reconstruction; Hart, Formation of the Union; Wilson, Division and Reunion. 3. The rates of the tariff law now in force are stated in newspaper almanacs. Is this tariff high, low, or moderate in its rates?

4. In the Statistical Abstract will be found the list of items upon which duties and internal-revenue taxes were collected, with the amount yielded by each, for a series of years. 5. What reasons can you assign for the taxation of oleomargarine, mixed flour, and filled cheese?

6. What are proprietary articles? At what rates were stamp taxes levied upon them under the law of 1898? What documentary stamps were used under this law? See newspaper almanacs for 1899 and succeeding years. Also Rev. of R's, 18: 48–52.

7. How are internal-revenue stamps cancelled?

8. What peculiar conditions made the Whiskey Rebellion possible? Walker, 123-125; Hart, 163-164; Lodge, Alexander Hamilton (American Statesmen series), 180-184.

9. Why should carriages have been taxed in our early history? McMaster, History of the People of the United States, II, 614-615.

10. Make a possible example showing the inequalities that would result from the apportionment of a direct tax among the States according to their population.

11. a. What is a deficiency bill? Harrison, This Country of Ours, 58.

b. What are riders to appropriation bills? Harri

son, 131-132.

12. For the details of the income-tax law of 1894, see Howe, Taxation and Taxes in the United States under the Internal-Revenue System.

13. Question for debate: Aside from its constitutionality, was the income-tax law of 1894 a just measure? Forum, 17: 1-13; 14-18; 19: 48-56; 513-520; 521-531; N. Am. Rev., 160: 601-606.

14. Statistics answering the following questions may be found in the Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury (Finance Reports); Statistical Abstracts; Abridgments of the President's Message and Documents; Monthly Summaries of Commerce and Finance issued by the Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department; newspaper almanacs and year-books.

(a) What were the revenues of the last fiscal year? The expenditures? The chief items under each head? Do you think that any of the expenditures were extravagant?

(b) Make a table representing revenues and expenditures for a series of years. How do you account for fluctuations?

(c) Estimate the per capita revenues and expenses for different years.

15. The receipts of the United States government for 1791 were $4,771,342; for the year 1899, $515,960, 620. (Finance Reports, 1899, cxxxiv-cxxxvii. These figures do not include postal receipts.) Compare the growth in revenues with the growth of the country in population and in wealth. The sources of National revenue, N. Am. Rev., 168: 297-309.

16. The appropriations made by recent Congresses are as follows:

What reasons are there for the growth of public expenditures? Atl. Mo., 87: 45–55. See also Wright, What the Government Costs, Century Mag., 61: 433-437.

17. Statistics of the National debt since the foundation

* These figures are larger than those given in the Statistical Abstract, because some items are omitted from the latter; for the appropriations made by the 56th Congress these items were as follows:

of the government may be found in the Finance Reports and in newspaper almanacs. Make a chart showing fluctuations of the debt. Account for the important changes in

amount.

18. Find in daily papers quotations of the current prices of National bonds. How do you account for differences in their prices? How do the prices of these bonds indicate the Nation's credit? The actual rates of interest that bonds yield may be calculated by the use of "bond-value tables." A set of these tables, accompanied by an explanation, is found in Clow, Introduction to the Study of Commerce, Appendix IV.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE POWER OF CONGRESS OVER COMMERCE

In the conventions that assembled at Alexandria in 1785 and at Annapolis in 1786, commerce was the most important subject discussed. Indeed, it was the necessity for a better method of regulating commerce that brought about these meetings. This problem was one of the difficult questions before the Constitutional Convention, and its solution was reached only by compromise. The clause * embodied in the Constitution was a victory for the advocates of an efficient National government, for Congress was given power

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the Article I, several States, and with the Indian tribes.

In the exercise of this power, Congress was made subject to two limitations.

section 8, clause 3.

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from Section 9, any State.

clause 5.

clause 6.

No preference shall be given by any regulation of com- Section 9, merce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.

In the regulation of foreign commerce, † Congress has enacted measures for the protection of shipping, by the maintenance of light-houses, buoys, and life-saving

*Clauses 1 and 2 of section 8, Article I, are discussed under National Finances, pp. 182 and 191.

+ The exercise of this power was carried to its extreme limit in thẹ embargo act of 1807 and the non-intercourse act of 1809,