Note 27 — Chapter III

On a subsequent occasion, an attempt was made to obtain a resolution of congress, recommending as an additional amendment to the eighth article of the confederation, that the taxes for the use of the continent should be laid and levied separate from any other tax, and should be paid directly into the national treasury; and that the collectors respectively should be liable to an execution to be issued by the treasurer, or his deputy, under the direction of congress, for any arrears of taxes by him to be collected, which should not be paid into the treasury in conformity with the requisitions of congress.

Such was the prevalence of state policy, even in the government of the union, or such the conviction of the inutility of recommending such an amendment, that a vote of congress could not be obtained for asking this salutary regulation as a security for the revenue only for eight years.