ves within
A VERY NARROW COMPASS; and in the interim, the United States will, in
all probability, find it convenient to abstain wholly from those objects
to which the particular States would be inclined to resort.

To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it
will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will
require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which
will require a State provision. We shall discover that the former are
altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very
moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we
are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward
to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be
framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination
of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural
and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more
fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in
the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.
There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as
they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is
impossible safely to limit that capacity. It is true, perhaps, that a
computation might be made with sufficient accuracy to answer the
purpose of the quantity of revenue requisite to discharge the subsisting
engagements of the Union, and to maintain those establishments which,
for some time to come, would suffice in time of peace. But would it be
wise, or would it not rather be the extreme of folly, to stop at this
point, and to leave the government intrusted with the care of the
national defense in a state of absolute incapacity to provide for the
protection of the community against future invasions of the public
peace, by foreign war or domestic convulsions? If, on the contrary, we
ought to exceed this point, where can we stop, short of an indefinite
power of providing for emergencies as they may arise? Though it is
easy to assert, in general terms, the possibility of forming a rational
judgment of a due provision against probable dangers, yet we may safely
challenge those who make the assertion to bring forward their data, and
may affirm that they would be found as vague and uncertain as any that
could be produced to establish the probable duration of the world.
Observa