Debt

No. 7: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States
Author: Alexander Hamilton

The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision between the separate States or confederacies. There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general principle of discharging the public debt. Some of them, either less impressed with the importance of national credit, or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the question, feel an indifference, if not a repugnance, to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate. Others of them, a numerous body of whose citizens are creditors to the public beyond proportion of the State in the total amount of the national debt, would be strenuous for some equitable and effective provision.

For it is an observation, as true as it is trite, that there is nothing men differ so readily about as the payment of money.

No. 15: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
Author: Alexander Hamilton

Do we owe debts to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril for the preservation of our political existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their discharge. Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of public danger? Is commerce of importance to national wealth?

No. 43: The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
Author: James Madison

To consider all debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, as being no less valid against the United States, under this Constitution, than under the Confederation.

Taxes

No. 12: The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue
November 27, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury.

No. 30: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
December 28, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution.

No. 31: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
January 1, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people. As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes.

No. 35: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
Author: Alexander Hamilton

There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. There can be no doubt that in order to a judicious exercise of the power of taxation, it is necessary that the person in whose hands it should be acquainted with the general genius, habits, and modes of thinking of the people at large, and with the resources of the country.

No. 36: The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
January 8, 1788.

The natural operation of the different interests and views of the various classes of the community, whether the representation of the people be more or less numerous, it will consist almost entirely of proprietors of land, of merchants, and of members of the learned professions, who will truly represent all those different interests and views.