Had it not been for this eagerness on the part of the employing class to secure cheap labor at first through the importation of the African slave and later through the active encouragement of indiscriminate foreign immigration, we would not now have the serious political, social and economic problems which owe their existence to the presence among us of vast numbers of alien races who have little in common with the better class of American citizens. This element of our population, while benefiting the employing class by keeping wages down, has at the same time made it more difficult to bring about that intelligent political co-operation so much needed to check the greed of organized wealth.
The limitation of governmental powers in the Constitution of the United States was not designed to prevent all interference in business, but only such as was conceived to be harmful to the dominant class. The nature of these limitations as well as the means of enforcing them indicate their purpose. The provision relating to direct taxes is a good example. The framers of the Constitution were desirous of preventing any use of the taxing power by the general government that would be prejudicial to the interests of the well-to-do classes. This is the significance of the provision that no direct taxes shall be laid unless in proportion to population.[182] The only kind of a direct tax which the framers intended that the general government should have power to levy was the poll tax which would demand as much from the poor man as from the rich. This was indeed one of the reasons for opposing the ratification of the Constitution.
"Many specters," said Hamilton, "have been raised out of this power of internal taxation to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes, have been played off with all the ingenious dexterity of political legerdemain....
"As little friendly as I am to the species of imposition [poll-taxes], I still feel a thorough conviction that the power of having recourse to it ought to exist in the Federal government. There are certain emergencies of nations, in which expedients, that in the ordinary state of things ought to be forborne, become essential to the public weal. And the government, from the possibility of such emergencies, ought ever to have the option of making use of them."[183]
It is interesting to observe that Hamilton's argument in defense of the power to levy poll-taxes would have been much more effective if it had been urged in support of the power to levy a direct tax laid in proportion to wealth. But this kind of a tax would, in the opinion of the framers, have placed too heavy a burden upon the well-to-do. Hence they were willing to deprive the general government of the power to levy it even at the risk of crippling it in some great emergency when there might be urgent need of a large revenue.
This is not strange, however, when we remember that it was the property-owning class that framed and secured the adoption of the Constitution. That they had their own interests in view when they confined the general government practically to indirect taxes levied upon articles of general consumption, and forbade direct taxes levied in proportion to wealth, seems highly probable. It appears, then, that the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court declaring the Federal Income Tax unconstitutional merely gave effect to the original spirit and purpose of this provision.
The disposition to guard the interests of the property-holding class rather than to prevent legislation for their advantage is also seen in the interpretation which has been given to the provision forbidding the states to pass any laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The framers of the Constitution probably did not have in mind the extended application which the courts have since made of this limitation on the power of the states. Perhaps they intended nothing more than that the states should be prevented from repudiating their just debts. But whatever may have been the intention of the framers themselves, the reactionary movement in which they were the recognized leaders, finally brought about a much broader and, from the point of view of the capitalist class, more desirable interpretation of this provision.
There is evidence of a desire to limit the power of the states in this direction even before the Constitutional Convention of 1787 assembled. The legislature of Pennsylvania in 1785 passed a bill repealing an act of 1782 which granted a charter to the Bank of North America. James Wilson, who is said to have suggested the above-mentioned clause of the Federal Constitution, made an argument against the repeal of the charter, in which he claimed that the power, or at least the right of the legislature, to modify or repeal did not apply to all kinds of legislation. It could safely be exercised, he thought, in the case of "a law respecting the rights and properties of all the citizens of the state."
"Very different," he says, "is the case with regard to a law, by which the state grants privileges to a congregation or other society.... Still more different is the case with regard to a law by which an estate is vested or confirmed in an individual: if, in this case, the legislature may, at discretion, and without any reason assigned, divest or destroy his estate, then a person seized of an estate in fee-simple, under legislative sanction, is, in truth, nothing more than a solemn tenant at will....
"To receive the legislative stamp of stability and permanency, acts of incorporation are applied for from the legislature. If these acts may be repealed without notice, without accusation, without hearing, without proof, without forfeiture, where is the stamp of their stability?... If the act for incorporating the subscribers to the Bank of North America shall be repealed in this manner, a precedent will be established for repealing, in the same manner, every other legislative charter in Pennsylvania.... Those acts of the state, which have hitherto been considered as the sure anchors of privilege and of property, will become the sport of every varying gust of politics, and will float wildly backwards and forwards on the irregular and impetuous tides of party and faction."[184]