PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 299 



one year (1878) revenue to the extent of only five cents, accruing 

 from the importation of only one pound of copper, was collected. 

 The legislators who enacted the law productive of such a result 

 might have pleaded in justification that revenue was their in- 

 tent ; * but when a brief experience had proved that the taxing 

 power had been used to prevent the raising of revenue by the 

 state, and for a different purpose, it was evident that a continu- 

 ance of the policy (and the tax was long retained) was in effect a 

 justification and an indorsement of it. To complete the illustra- 

 tion, it should be further pointed out that the result of this per- 

 version of the taxing power was to enable the owners of copper 

 mines in the United States, especially certain ones of unprece- 

 dented richness formerly the property of the United States, but 

 sold for a mere song to extort for a period of years from the 

 people of the whole country the sum of five cents for every pound 

 of copper they consumed, but from which exaction (aggregating 

 millions) the people of other countries, who consumed the large 

 surplus product of American copper exported, were exempt, as 

 the tax laws of all countries have no extra-territorial jurisdiction. 

 During the discussion and defense of this tariff enacted in 1890, 

 however, all pretense and evasion were discarded, and the posi- 

 tion openly taken that the Government could rightfully levy 

 taxes, not for the purpose of raising revenue, and not to subserve 

 any necessity of the state, and under the name of protection 

 delegate to private or corporate interests the right to collect and 

 appropriate them. 



It has been contended by authorities worthy of all respect (the 

 late George Ticknor Curtis, for example) that there is no per- 

 version of the taxing power in the levy of duties on imports by 

 the Federal Government for purposes other than revenue, for the 

 reason that " duties are not taxes, but assessments, in the nature 

 of tribute imposed on merchandise imported from other coun- 

 tries," and that " when the Government levies duties on foreign 

 products," under the provision of the Constitution that " Congress 

 shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and 

 excises," " it dues not exercise or pretend to exercise its taxing 

 power." 



In answer to this it is to be said, first, that the application of dif- 

 ferent names to one and the same act does not alter the nature of 

 the act ; second, that usage and authorities among all nations and at 

 all times are in unison in regarding such terms as imposts, duties, 

 excises, customs, tolls, gabbele, talliage, tribute, and the like, when 



* The United States Supreme Court has held that the judicial power can not inquire into 

 the intentions of Congress in imposing a tax ; and that, if injustice is done, the only remedy 

 is an appeal to the legislative power that has inflicted it. 



