The Litchfield County post., 1829-01-15

chants that the commerce of the State was banished by them into other channels, es- pecially to Maryland, where imports were less burihcned than in Virginia. See do. for 17S9.
 Such tendency to separate regulations was indeed too manifest to escape antici- patton. Among the projects prompted by the want of Federal authority over com merce, was that of concert first proposed on the part of Maryland for uniformity of regulations between the two States, and Commissioners were appointed for that purpose. It was soon perceived, however, that the concurrence of Pennsylvania was as necessary to Maryland as of Maryland to Virginia, and the concurrence of Penn syIvania was accordingly ly invited. But Pennsylvania could no more concur with out New-York than Maryland without Pennsylvania, nor New-Y ork without the concurrence of Boston, &c.
 These projects were superseded for the moment by that of the Convention at An napolis, 1786, and forever by the Conven- ton at Philadelphia in 1787, and the con- stitution which was the fruit of it.
 There is passage in MT. Neckar's work on the finances of France which af- lords signal illustration of the difficulty of collecting in contiguous communities, indirect taxes, when not the same in all, by violent means resorted to against snug gling from one to another of them. Pre- vIous to the late Revolutionary war in that country, the taxes were of very different rates in the different provinces particu- larly the tax on salt, which was high in the interior provinces and low in the maritime ,, and the tax on tobacco, which was very high in general, whilst in some of the pro- vinces the article was altogether free. The consequence was, that the standing army of patrol against smuggling, had swollen the number to twenty-three thousand the annual arrest of men, women and children, engaged in smuggling, to five thousand five hundred and fifty; and the number annu- ally arrested on account of salt and tobac- co alone, to seventeen or eighteen hun dred, more than three hundred of whom were consigned to the terrible punishment of the Galleys.
 May it not be regarded among the pro- Vidential b]essings of these States, that F4heiHgeographical relations, multiplied as they will be by artificial channels of inter- course, give such additional force to the many obligations to cherish that. union which alone secures their peace, their safe- ty, and their prosperity? Apart from the more obvious and awful consequences off their entire separation into independent sovereignties, it is worthy of special consi- iteration, that, divided from each other as they must be by narrow waters and terri torial lines mere ly, the facility of surrepti- ! tious introductions of contraband articles, would defeat every attempt at revenue in the easy and direct modes of impost and excise; so that while their expenditures would be necessarily and vastly increased by their new situation, they would, in pro- viding for them, be limited to direct taxes on land or other property: to arbitrary assessment on invisible funds, and to an odious tax on persons.
 You will observe that I have confined ] myself, in what has been said, to the con- stitutionality, and expediency of the power ducts by regulations of commerce. In the exercise of the power, they are responsible to their constituents whose right and du- ty it is, in that as in all other cases, to bring their measures to the test of justice and of the general good.
 With great esteem and cordial regard, {
 JAMES MADISON. Jos. c. CABELL, ESQ.
 GREECE.