The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1866-10-24
The Cotton Tax.
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AS TO THE PREsI
DENTS POWER TO FORM COLLECTION DISTRICTS.
ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE, Sept %, 1866

/ OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL AS TO The PREsI
DENTS POWER TO FORM COLLECTION DISTRICTS.
ATTORNEY GENERALS OFFICE, Sept %, 1866
/ To Hon Hugh McCulloch Secretary of the Treasury
Sri am in receipt Of your letter of the 24tb re
] questing my opinion on the following point:
| Whether the laws imposing tax cotton, ant
providing for its collection SO restrict the executive
authorities to forbid the arranging of cotton States
into single cotton district, for the purpose of collect
ing the tax cotton having reference to the cotton
tax only and without necessarily involving any change
OF districts which may be most convenient for the col
lection of other taxes.
am clearly of the opinion that such consolida-
tion of the cotton growing States is desired by the
terms of the foregoing inquiry into single collection
dist let for the purpose of burng and collecting the
duties imposed by the internal revenue laws upon
cotton carrot be lawfully effected under the existing
provisions of these laws.
The authority conferred upon the president by the
act of June 80, 1864, section to alter the respective
districts the public interest may require, enables
him only modify from time to time as may be re-
quired existing arrangements of the general districts
designated by him for the buying and collection of all
the duties and taxes prescribed or imposed by the
acts of congress relating to internal revenue. By the
original act OF July 1th, 1862, the presd mt EN-
powered simply to divide, respectively the States and
territories Of the United States and District OF Colum-
bia into convenient collection districts. Soon after
the passage of this act, question arose ag to the
authority of the president alter the of
the collection districts made and established by him in
pursuance of this provision of law. That question
carefully considered by my predecessor attorney
general Bates who gave his opinion that the president
when he made the original division of the States into
collection districts, exhausted his power in the prem
ses- This was held on the general principle that
where act of congress, establishing general sys-
ten, confers the president authority to do spec-
tied act for the purpose OF periectng the means by
which the system shall be carried into effect the act
terms of the statute has all the validity and authority
of the statate Itself United States opinion Bates
attorney general page 384.
In view Of the law having been adopted by the
treasury Department. congress was applied to for ad
ditona legislation comforting the authority which
not contained in the original act. The seventh sec
ton of the act Of June 80 1864, was accordingly en-
acted to remedy the particular defect which found
exist in the statute of 1862 1t is clear to ad-
NIT of doubt, that the collection districts within the
meaning of that act these districts respectively in
which the internal duties and taxes imposed by law
upon all the subjects of taxation, collected in the
manner and by the officers designated in the statute
The districts cannot be established arranged with
reference to the duties imposed particular subjects.
That is not the plan upon which the internal revenue
laws proceed Sach an arrangement as is proposed
in tile memorials which you have submitted to me, /
should not be carried into effect with the. machinery
by existing law for the collection of inter
nal duties. The pre- iden1 has power to appoint
special collector for the tax imposed on the particular
article Of cotton, could he designate any one Of
the district collectors as the officer who should pro-
ceed throughout the entire cotton territory and collect
the tax on that article wherever found.
The mischief of the present SYSTEM complained of
by the chambers of commerce of Mobile and New Or
leans, can only be remeded by congress. The act of
July l3th 1866, to which reference is made by the
memorial contains all the exceptional provisional pro
visions to the tax which congress deemed
I'M rF
ng authority to make the additional exception now
'eQuested, seem to me wholly Inconsistent with it.
have the honor to be, etc, ETC.,
(Signedl HENRY STANBERRY, Atty. Gen.