” As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the states in their collective capacities, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes.”
Had the states complied with tax levies under the Articles, would a Constitutional Convention have occurred? Probably. But, if this method of collecting revenue was successful, perhaps it would have remained the method of taxation under the Constitution. The superiority of the states in all things under the Articles, their bold disobedience to the document they created, brought on the system of taxation under the Constitution.
BTW, under that system, let’s not forget that the US flourished. From a near subsistence agricultural economy in 1800 we were an emerging world power by 1900.
I recall in a colloquoy with a fellow FReeper some years ago that the federal government levied taxes against the states, but there was no enforcement mechanism. I think someone mentioned that a 19th Century Supreme Court case denied the federal government the authority to physically collect from the states.
I've been combing States' Rights and the Union by Forrest McDonald for a mention of this, but I can't seem to find it.
The 16th Amendment repealed much of Article I, Section 2, to include the prose I quoted.