Cleon Skousen asserts that “this present provision gave each state the RIGHT not to have its citizens taxed any higher than the other states in proportion to its population.”(1)
James Madison, in his notes from the Constitutional Convention, quoted Elbridge Gerry as having stressed that “All moneys to be raised for supplying the public treasury by direct taxation shall be assessed on the inhabitants of the several states according to the number of their representatives respectively in the first branch,… according to the general principle that taxation and representation ought to go to together.”(2)
Edmund Randolph agreed: “Representatives and taxes go hand in hand: according to the one will the other be regulated…”(3)
James Madison explained in Federalist 54 that “Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects, the States will have opposite interests which will control and balance each other and produce the requisite impartiality.”(4)
These views were the framers’ original intent for our Constitution which were changed by the 16th Amendment which states, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” This means that Congress now has the power to assess and collect taxes on income from all sources.
The framers considered being taxed on labor to be slavery. They were somewhat on their way to ending slavery for all for Americans, for at this time 5 of the states had freed their slaves and had given them freedom to vote with full representation in those states.
Father teach us Your ways that Your people would invest more money to make disciples and to build Your kingdom than we are being taxed!
(1) Cleon Skousen, Making of America, NCCS (USA, April 2009 printing), p. 275
(2) James Madison, The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America, ed. Gaillard Hunt and James Brown Scott (New York: Oxford University Press 1920), p. 246
(3) Jonathan Elliot, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, (Philadelphia: JB Lippincott Company, 1901), 3:121-22.
(4) Federalist 54
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I have learned many of these quotes from The Making of America by Cleon Skousen. You may purchase it here.
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“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 NIV
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