Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1865-09-13
State Faxes on Nationalkeouritiea.

L
VIII some Democratic yarnal that goes
fpr repudiating the NatioM Debt by means
Of State taxes on Natiogl Securieties un-
f.dettake to answer the Fecent argument of
| John Sherman. Chair,haa of the Finance
| Committee of the lifted States Senate?
| The provisions of the law is: All stocks,
! bonds and other Securities of the United
States shall be exempt from taxation by or
l.rnder State authorities That is part of
! the contract which the United States made
solemnly with every working man who has
invested his savings in a Seven-Ihlrty bond.
For State to attempt TO lay tax on one
of those bonds would be the same thing as
attempting to repUdiate the contract. \
State cannot annul law of the United
States. Nay more, it could not tax one of
those bonds even if no such stipulations had
been inserted in the law. The Supreme
| Court of the United States has settled that.
1t has repeatedly decided that no State can
lay any tax whatever on Government secu-
rites of any description; and for this reason.
| The Government of the United States has
the constitutional right to borrow money,
and the Supreme Court said that to lay
tax on that borrowed money would be to
retard, impede, burden and control the acts
of Congress- and it might be the means of
nullifying them. Speaking of this power
to borrow money, Chief-Justice Marshall
said ''No power has been conferred by
| the American people on this Government,
the free and unburdened exercise of which
more deeply affects every member Of our
Republic K Can anything be more
dangerous or mora injurious than the ad-
mission ola principle which authorizes every
| State and every corporation in the u
Mon which possesses the right of taxation
! to burden the exercise of this power at dis
cretion IF the right to impose tax exists,
it is right which in its nature ackaoscl-
edges no limits.
The right to tax having thus been twice
denied by the Supreme Court, the question
came again in another form before the
| Court in 1912, and it was once more declared
that the States could lay no tax. 1t was
held by court which was then, as Senator
| Sherman says, Democratic machine, yet
every Judge agreed, fancy among them,
that any tax upon any agent IN the en-
ployment of the United States by any State,
was unconstitutional and void. y
The issue, therefore, which the Demo
cratic party threatens to make on this ques-
ton of taxation is not with the Republican
party, nor with the Administration, but
with the United States Supreme Court, and
the first Democratic Legislature that at
tempts to lay tax on National secuTliles
viii find itself confronted by the :'!idie'oi
power Of the United States, Ard this, not
on the construction of the loan acts during
the war, but upon the general principle that
State cannot tax ony Government securl-
ties Unless, therefore, the Democratic
party proposes to begin a warfare on the
Supreme Court of the United States, 1t
must stop where it is, or direct Its efforts for
repudiation toward Congress. The sooner
the Democrats try that the BETTER Tor their
failure will be complete whenever they try
| it. and the country ywill cease to be threatened
with a party of Reputation. T. Tribune.