[Gunslingr3]

You are not reading the very intentions for which the founders adopted the rule of apportionment for any general tax laid among the States!

Actually, I am. The rule of apportionment applies to direct taxes. Direct taxes are applied 'directly' to individuals. An exmaple of a direct tax is a capitation, or 'head tax', charged per person. Another example of a direct tax is an income tax. The 16th amendment not only empowered the Congress to collect income tax, it exempted the income tax from apportionment.

A sales tax is an excise tax (it will be applied to a specified set of goods), and apportionment does not apply to indirect taxes like a sales tax.

Article I, Section 8 "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

Sales taxes are excise taxes, the congress is free to impose them, but they must be uniform (e.g. they can't apply a 10% rate to Florida and a 5% rate to California) throughout the U.S.

Article I, Section 9: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

The proportionality rule applies to direct taxes, not indirect taxes. Income taxes, which are direct taxes, are exempted from apportionment by the text of the 16th amendment.

Your argument collapses because you fail to acknowledge that sales taxes are excise taxes, and thereby not subject to the apportionment clause of Article I, Section 9.

The U.S. Congress first placed a sales tax on whiskey, and George Washington personally faced down the rebellion against it.

[JOHN W K]

In regard to a definition of “direct taxes” during the convention when our Constitution was being framed, the question was asked what is meant by “direct taxes“, but no one answered! But what was answered repeatedly was the intentions for which the founders agreed direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States. And the legislative intent was to insure that if Congress found imposts and duties (taxes at our water’s edge) and miscellaneous excise taxes imposed upon “judiciously selected” articles of consumption [not an across the board tax upon the sale of property which is what Herman’s sales tax really is] insufficient for the “Publick Exigencies”, and the need arose to lay a general tax among the States to raise additional revenue, a fixed formula would decide each State’s “fair share”of a total sum being raised by Congress just as each State “fair share” of representatives are determined by a fixed formula! The two formulas considering subsequent amendments to our Constitution may be expressed as follows:

FAIR SHARE OF ANY GENRAL TAX AMONG THE STATES

State`s Pop.
_________ X SUM NEEDED = STATE`S SHARE OF TAX
U.S. pop.

FAIR SHARE OF EACH STATE’S REPRESENTATIVES

State`s Pop.
___________ X House size (435) = State`s No.of Reps.
U.S. pop.

But don’t take my word for what the founders intended. Let them speak for themselves:

Pinckney addressing the S.C. ratification convention with regard to the rule of apportionment says:

“With regard to the general government imposing internal taxes upon us, he contended that it was absolutely necessary they should have such a power: requisitions had been in vain tried every year since the ratification of the old Confederation, and not a single state had paid the quota required of her. The general government could not abuse this power, and favor one state and oppress another, as each state was to be taxed only in proportion to its representation“__ 4 Elliot‘s, S.C., 305-6

Also see: “The proportion of taxes are fixed by the number of inhabitants, and not regulated by the extent of the territory, or fertility of soil” 3 Elliot`s, 243, “Each state will know, from its population, its proportion of any general tax” Mr. George Nicholas, during the ratification debates of our Constitution

And, Mr. Madison goes on to remark about Congress’s “general power of taxation” that, "they will be limited to fix the proportion of each State, and they must raise it in the most convenient and satisfactory manner to the public." 3 Elliot‘s, 255

And then there is Mr. PENDLETON‘S comment which goes directly to the evil of democracy being corrected by the rule of apportionment, the evil being when 51 percent of the population use their vote to tax away the property of the remaining 49 percent of the population:

“The apportionment of representation and taxation by the same scale is just; it removes the objection, that, while Virginia paid one sixth part of the expenses of the Union [under the Articles of Confederation], she had no more weight in public counsels than Delaware, which paid but a very small portion” 3 Elliot‘s 41

The bottom line is, our founding fathers intended that if Congress should ever have to enter the states and tax the people directly with a general tax among the States, the rule of apportionment would be observed and guarantee to the people of those States who contributed the lion’s share under the tax an apportioned representation in Congress proportionately equal to their contribution, which corrects evil of democracy.

Why are you so eager to defend representation without proportional oblegation?

BTW, if you can find one instance of a “sales tax”, an across the board tax laid upon the sale of property laid during the time period our Constitution was being framed, please post that information.

JWK