Correct me with quotes/links/history if I’m wrong. Before the 16th Amendment, outside of tarriffs etc I’m not at the carbohydrate-hazy moment clear how the feds accumulated revenue. As the Senate and President were at the time selected by the _states_ (not directly by aggregate individual citizens), I don’t see a stretch to just issuing states a bill based on Congressional seats, and letting each state decide how that bill would be fulfilled (New York by taxing each via complex revenue codes, Alaska by a cut of oil revenues and no tax on residents, etc.).
Creation of an efficient system of taxation was one of the reasons for the Constitutional Convention. I do know, having read the Virginia ratification debates on the Constitution, that the Anti-Federalists zeroed in on the direct taxing power as a great evil that would lead to our enslavement. They argued forcefully for the requisition system that did not work under the Articles. Federalists responded that to enforce payment against recalcitrant states would be to constitutionalize, to guarantee civil war.
Our government did just fine for 120 years collecting duties, imposts, and excises. A man could go through a lifetime without paying the federal government a cent.
THAT is liberty.