Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1811
We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importations, because it falls exclusively on the rich, and with the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitutes the best agrarian law. In fact, the poor man in this country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government, but on his salt; and should we go into that manufacture as we ought to do, he will pay not one cent.
Taxes raised by our new nation were largely on imports so when Alexander Hamilton wrote, If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.... he was referring to the the purchase of imported goods, not domestically produced.
Why does that matter? In addition to raising money for the federal government, import duties functioned to protect developing domestic manufacturing, intentionally.
I can't imagine Alexander Hamilton endorsing a tax system that proposes to collect 30% on rents, for instance.
“I can’t imagine Alexander Hamilton endorsing a tax system that proposes to collect 30% on rents, for instance.”
Can you imagine Mr. Hamilton endorsing a system like the one we have now, which requires some 67,000+ pages to document?
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule which is little known and less fixed?”
James Madison, Federalist #62