370
Basic Constitutional Concepts
present Congress have as complete authority to require of the States indeļ¬nite supplies of money for the common defence and general welfare
as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens;
and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have
been to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them. Had the States complied punctually with the Articles of Confederation, or could their compliance have been enforced by as peaceable means as may be used with
success towards single persons, our past experience is very far from
countenancing an opinion that the State Governments would have lost
their constitutional powers, and have gradua