But Then Comes The Great Question, What Duty Will Really Give The Greatest Product? At What Rate Shall We Tax Coffee So As To Get At The People's Money? If It Be So Taxed That People Won't Use It, The Tax Cuts Its Own Throat.

There is some point at which the tax will be most productive; and also there is a point up to which the tax will not operate to the serious injury of the trade.

Without the knowledge which should indicate these points, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his myrmidons, would be groping in the dark. As far as we can yet see, there is not much of such knowledge either in the Treasury chambers or the House of Representatives at Washington.

But the greatest difficulty which the States will feel in obtaining access to their own means of taxation is that which is created by the Constitution itself, and to which I alluded when speaking of the taxing powers which the Constitution had given to Congress and those which it had denied to Congress. As to custom duties and excise duties, Congress can do what it pleases, as can the House of Commons. But Congress cannot levy direct taxation according to its own judgment. In those matters of customs and excise Congress and the Secretary of the Treasury will probably make many blunders; but, having the power, they will blunder through, and the money will be collected. But direct taxation in an available shape is beyond the power of Congress under the existing rule of the Constitution.

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