The amount of these

continued since, the Revolution. The same was the case with Pennsylvania, also remarkable for its freedom. An excise, if so modified as not to offend the spirit of liberty, may be considered as an object of easy and equal revenue. Wine and imported spirits had borne a heavy excise in other countries, and might be adopted in ours. Coffee is another object which might be included. three objects is uncertain, but materials for a satisfactory computation might be procured. These hints and remarks he acknowledged to be extremely imperfect, and that he had been led to make them solely by a desire to contribute his mite towards such a system as would place the finances of the United States on an honorable and prosperous footing.

Mr. GORHAM observed, that the proposition of Mr. BLAND, however salutary its tendency might be in the respects suggested, could never be admitted, because it would leave our army to starve, and all our affairs to stagnate, during its immediate operation. He objected to a duty on salt, as not only bearing too heavily on the Eastern States, but as giving a dangerous advantage to rivals in the fisheries. Salt, he said, exported from England for the fisheries, is exempted particularly from duties. He thought it would be best to confine our attention, for the present, to the impost on trade, which had been carried so far towards an accomplishment, and to remove the objections which had retarded it, by limiting the term of its continuance, leaving to the States the nomination of the collectors, and by making the appropriation of it more specific.

Mr. RUTLEDGE was also for confining our attention to the impost, and to get that before any further attempts were made. In order to succeed in getting it, however, he thought it ought to be asked in a new form. Few of the States had complied with the recommendation of Congress, literally. Georgia had not yet complied. Rhode Island had absolutely refused to comply at all. Virginia, which at first complied but partially, has since rescinded even that partial compliance. After enumerating the several objections urged by the States against the scheme, he proposed, in order to remove them, the following resolution, viz:

"That it be earnestly recommended to the several States, to impose and levy a duty of five per cent., ad valorem, at the time and place of importation, on all goods, wares, and merchandizes of foreign growth and manufacture, which may be imported into the said States, respectively, except goods of the United States or any of them, and a like duty on all prizes and prize goods condemned in the Court of Admiralty of said States; that the money arising from such duties be paid into the Continental Treasury, to be appropriated and applied to the payment of the interest, and to sink the principal, of the money which the United States have borrowed in Europe, and of what they may borrow; for discharging the arrears due to the army, and for the future support of the war, and to no other use or purpose whatsoever; that the said duties be continued for twenty-five years, unless the debts above mentioned be discharged in the mean time, in which case they shall cease and determine; that the money arising from

the said duties, and paid by any State, be passed to the credit of such State on account of its quota of the debt of the United States." The motion was seconded by Mr. LEE.

Mr. WOLCOTT opposed the motion, as unjust towards those States which, having few or no ports, receive their merchandize through the ports of others; repeating the observation that it is the consumer, and not the importer, who pays the duty. He again animadverted on the conduct of Virginia in first giving, and afterwards withdrawing, her assent to the impost recommended by Congress.

Mr. ELLSWORTH thought it wrong to couple any other objects with the impost; that the States would give this, if any thing; and that, if a land tax or excise were combined with it, the whole scheme would fail. He thought, however, that some modification of the plan recommended by Congress would be necessary. He supposed, when the benefits of this continental revenue should be experienced, it would incline the States to concur in making additions to it. He abetted the opposition of Mr. WOLCOTT to the motion of Mr. RUTLEDGE, which proposed th each State should be credited for the duties collected within its ports; dwelt on the injustice of it; said that Connecticut, before the Revolution, did not import one fiftieth, perhaps not one hundredth, part of the merchandize consumed within it, and pronounced that such a plan would never be agreed to. He concurred in the expediency of new-modelling the scheme of the impost by defining the period of its continuance; by leaving to the State the nomination, and to Congress the appointment, of collectors, or

vice versa, and by a more determinate appropriation of the revenue. The first object to which it ought to be applied was, he thought, the foreign debt. This object claimed a preference, as well from the hope of facilitating further aids from that quarter, as from the disputes into which a failure may embroil the United States. The prejudices against making a provision for foreign debts which should not include the domestic ones, was, he thought, unjust, and might be satisfied by immediately requiring a tax, in discharge of which loan-office certificates should be receivable. State funds, for the domestic debts, would be proper for subsequent consideration. He added, as a further objection against crediting the States for the duties on trade respectively collected by them, that a mutual jealousy of injuring their trade by being foremost in imposing such a duty would prevent any from making a beginning.

Mr. WILLIAMSON said, that Mr. RUTLEDGE's motion, at the same time that it removed some objections, introduced such as would be much more fatal to the measure. He was sensible of the necessity of some alterations, particularly in its duration, and the appointment of the collectors. But the crediting the States, severally, for the amount of their collections, was so palpably unjust and injurious, that he thought candor required that it should not be persisted in. He was of opinion that the interest of the States which trade for others also required it, since such an abuse of the advantage possessed by them would compel the States for which they trade to overcome the obstacles of nature, and provide supplies for themselves. North Carolina, he said, would proba

bly be supplied pretty much through Virginia, if the latter forbore to levy a tax on the former; but in case she did not forbear, the ports of North Carolina, which are nearly as deep as those of Holland, might, and probably would, be substituted. The profits

drawn by the more commercial States from the business they carry on for the others, were of themselves sufficient, and ought to satisfy them.

Mr. RAMSAY differed entirely from his colleague, Mr. RUTLEDGE. He thought that, as the consumer pays the tax, the crediting the States collecting the impost unjust. North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut, would suffer by such a regulation, and would never agree to it.

Mr. BLAND was equally against the regulation. He thought it replete with injustice, and repugnant to every idea of finance. He observed, that this point had been fully canvassed at the time when the impost was originally recommended by Congress, and finally exploded. He was, indeed, he said, opposed to the whole motion of Mr. RUTLEDGE. Nothing would be a secure pledge to creditors that was not placed out of the control of the grantors. As long as it was in the power of the States to repeal their grants in this respect, suspicions would prevail, and would prevent loans. Money ought to be appropriated by the States as it is by the Parliament of Great Britain. He proposed that the revenue to be solicited from the States should be irrevocable by them without the consent of Congress, or of nine of the States. He disapproved of any determinate limitation to the continuance of the revenue, because the continuance of the debt could not be fixed, and that