Federalist Papers – Taxes

Federalist Paper Series

No. 12: The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue
November 27, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury.

No. 30: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
December 28, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution.

No. 31: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
January 1, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes.

No. 35: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
Author: Alexander Hamilton

There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. There can be no doubt that in order to a judicious exercise of the power of taxation, it is necessary that the person in whose hands it should be acquainted with the general genius, habits, and modes of thinking of the people at large, and with the resources of the country.

No. 36: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
January 8, 1788.

The natural operation of the different interests and views of the various classes of the community, whether the representation of the people be more or less numerous, it will consist almost entirely of proprietors of land, of merchants, and of members of the learned professions, who will truly represent all those different interests and views.