Monday, November 26.
Preservation of Peace.
The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill for the more effectual preservation of peace in the ports and harbors of the United States, and in waters under their jurisdiction.
The first section authorizes the President and other proper officers to call in the aid of the militia, regular troops, or armed vessels, to execute civil process upon offenders who take refuge on board foreign armed vessels.
On motion of Mr. Nicholson, any commanding officer refusing to obey a requisition to this effect was subjected to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars.
Remission of Duties.
Mr. Randolph called for the order of the day on the report of the Committee of Ways and Means respecting the remission of duties on books imported for the use of colleges and seminaries of learning—the resolution declaring it to be inexpedient to allow the same.
The House taking the subject into consideration—
Mr. J. Randolph observed that the Constitution of the United States was a grant of limited powers for general objects, which Congress had no right to exceed, although they might think the powers too limited. This position he considered as of primary importance. Its leading feature was an abhorrence of exclusive privileges; it might be called the key to that instrument; every thing which rose up in the shape of privilege, was repressed in a peculiar manner, whether it related to orders or classes of men. Whenever they have touched the doctrine of privilege, the framers of that instrument, and the people of the United States adopting it, have been careful that nothing should be got by inference, or construction; the privileges of this House even have been precisely defined, and nothing is left for its extension, whatever may be the wishes or disposition of its members. The principle that this constitution is but a limited grant of power occurs, if not directly, yet frequently and effectually, so that it cannot be mistaken. On the privilege asked for, to permit colleges and universities to import their books free of impost, we refer to the eighth section of the first article, where it is declared that Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises; but all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States. The impost shall be uniform. It is a lamentable fact, but nevertheless it is a fact, and cannot be too much dwelt and insisted upon, nor too well known, that the ambiguity of language gives our constitution that character which leaves it in the power of civilians to say it means any thing or nothing. Whatever may have been said on other points, I think in this instance the language is so definite that it cannot possibly be mistaken. They shall be uniform, that is to say, there shall be but one quantum, one mode of collecting, and one manner; there shall not be two measures to mete with. If Congress undertake to exempt one class of people from the payment of the impost, they may exempt others also. If they begin with colleges and universities for the advancement of learning, surely they may go on to exempt the clergy and congregation for the advancement of religion; they may exempt their own members. Indeed, it cannot be seen where they are to stop, having once overleaped the constitutional barrier and entered on the wide field of privilege. The duties must be uniform! Nobody can be exempted: the President, if he chooses to import books, must pay the duty as well as any private citizen. In this country we have no privileged class, all must fare alike, every man must bend to the law, and the tax must be uniform whether on land or books.
Mr. Findlay observed, that in addition to the constitutional objections urged, he had others on the ground of expediency. The country colleges and seminaries whose funds were small, had seldom or never an opportunity of importing books; they were happy to receive them in the country as donations, or by cheap editions; they would therefore receive no corresponding accommodation, and yet they were more useful and their use more universally felt than those called higher institutions, which claim to be exempted from paying impost. There are only a few of the well-endowed academies that can afford to procure foreign books, and when they have them, their circulation is extremely confined; to say nothing more, these reasons would engage me to support the resolution.
Mr. R. Griswold.—The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Randolph) must have misunderstood me when he supposed I objected to the report because the committee had assigned no reason for the resolution: I mentioned the circumstance merely to show that we ought not then to decide. With respect to the constitutional objection he has set up, I acknowledge it is new to me. Such an inquiry may be of great weight, but it does not appear so to me. The paragraph quoted from the eighth section of the first article, “that Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes,” has never struck me in the way it has that gentleman. The words are, “levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises;” but it drops the word taxes, it being settled in another part of the constitution, and declares that duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform. The one speaks of direct taxes, the other of indirect—meaning that if an indirect tax is laid, it shall be uniform. No one State is to have an excise laid upon its inhabitants unless it extends to the citizens of every other: one part is not to be excised and another excused. This has always been the construction of that section of the constitution till the present moment, and I think it the true one. It is now said that Congress can only promote science and literature in one way. Why, have not Congress made grants of lands to promote those objects in the Western country? They have. I believe the power of Congress adequate to promote literature in the way applied for; and it has been frequently the case that, even after duties have been paid into the Treasury upon the uniform system, yet individuals have had those duties returned. I do not want to detain the House; but I am well persuaded that the constitution forms no impediment, and the expediency must be apparent.
Mr. J. Clay said he was one of the committee, and had agreed to the report. Since reasons had been called for, he would in a few words assign those which influenced him. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Dana) mistakes in thinking that a denial to exempt books from impost is a tax on literary institutions, and therefore not uniform, as the constitution requires all imposts should be; but he did not make his stand on the ground of the constitution—he rested the question upon its expediency. Giving literary institutions the privilege of exemption from imposts would open a wide door for fraud: we should soon have them importing books for sale duty free, rivalling the booksellers, who are subjected to the payment of impost, and vending them in every street and avenue of the nation. But why privilege colleges and universities to accommodate the rich; for we may believe that the rich, and the children of the rich, are the only persons who have access to these collections? The poor have little leisure and less opportunity to improve the advantage which even neighborhood would give them to peruse works of the kind alluded to; and sure it would be thought unjust to tax their pittance of imported articles, in order to enable gentlemen to read the classic authors, or the sublime and beautiful of the modern writers.
Mr. Findlay spoke of colleges, not of universities. We have three in Pennsylvania—one of them, to be sure, has also the title of university—but two of them have not funds to import books on their own account. It is only rich institutions that have this advantage: the poorer class of seminaries buy of booksellers, and pay them the impost as well as their retail profit. Indeed, this remission of duties will rather tend to create disgust than give satisfaction; and those seminaries which have large collections of books would be induced to sell them at their present price in order to procure new ones cheaper, as they have had to pay the duty on the former, but would have none to pay upon those they should hereafter import.
The question being called for, it was put on agreeing to the report of the Committee of the Whole, that it is inexpedient to remit the duty on books, and carried in the affirmative—seventy-nine members voting in the affirmative.
The House then adjourned.