PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 301 



Another proposition wliicTi has received the indorsement of 

 high judicial authority in the United States * is to employ Federal 

 taxation for the crushing out of State lotteries, with the absurd 

 accompaniment of no revenue (taxes) ; for if the desired object is 

 attained, the payment of taxes and the, procurement of revenue 

 will be prevented. It seems clear, also, that if such a measure 

 was once adopted it would constitute a precedent and authority 

 for the destruction by the Federal Government, through the exer- 

 cise of the taxing power, of nearly every faculty or power now 

 belonging to and exercised by the several States; and that houses 

 of prostitution, gambling and liquor saloons, opium "joints," and 

 other haunts of vice now under the control and supervision of the 

 police powers of the States might be regulated or suppressed by 

 Federal taxation, as well as lotteries, f 



every other government, and which would afEect the most unlimited government in the 

 world. These principles are that government is created with limitations flowing from the 

 nature of its being, which teach that no government shall use its power for the benefit of 

 the few to the detriment of the many. Therefore, all the arguments which have been 

 made on the subject of the abuse of the impost power in the Federal Government are argu- 

 ments addressing themselves not to the limit of delegation under the Constitution as to im- 

 posts, but to the ^ ant of power arising from the very nature of government itself. The 

 usurpation of power by Congress, not vested by the Constitution in Congress, is uncon- 

 stitutional." 



The point here at issue was also clearly recognized by President Cleveland, in his mes- 

 sage in 188G, announcing his signature to a bill (above noticed) for taxing oleomargarine, 

 where the real intent of taxation was popularly assumed to be prohibitive of production 

 and sale and not revenue. " It has been urged," he said, " as an objection to this measure 

 that while purporting to be legislation for revenue, its real purpose is to destroy, by the use 

 of the taxing power, one industry of our people for the protection and benefit of another. 

 If entitled to indulge in such a suspicion as a basis of ofiicial action in this case, and if en- 

 tirely satisfied that the consequences indicated would ensue, I should doubtless feel con- 

 strained to interpose executive dissent." In other words, the President took the bill as it 

 came to him as ostensibly a revenue measure, and in the exercise of his executive preroga- 

 tive passed upon it as such, but at the same time he was careful to say in this message that 

 if that bill had not presented that aspect to him, he would have been constrained to exer- 

 cise the executive veto. 



In the course of the debate to which reference has been made, Mr. White, in response 

 to a question as to what he would as a Senator consider his duty in respect to a bill pro- 

 posed to Congress for enactment which, while undoubtedly productive of revenue, was in- 

 tended for some other purpose, made answer as follows : " I would have two questions to 

 ask myself : Is this a bill raising revenue ? That is the first question. If I determine 

 that question in the affirmative, the lamp of my duty might lead my mind toward support- 

 ing that bill, but it could not carry me to that point unless another question were also an- 

 swered : Is it an honest exercise of the taxing power, or is it a dishonest scheme to raise 

 revenue and accomplish another purpose? If my mind, in the exercise of my duty heie, 

 found that either of these things existed, then, although it was a bill raising revenue, I 

 would not vote for a dishonest bill raising revenue." 



* Judge Cooley, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1892. 



f " Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are in the exclusive prov- 

 ince of the States." United States Supreme Court, Gibbom vs. Ogden, 9 Wheaton, i, 199. 



