Taxing Power: Luther Martin’s Anti-Federalist Warnings

By: Michael Boldin

 

Luther Martin believed the Constitution’s sweeping taxation power was one of its most dangerous features, a direct threat to both state sovereignty and individual liberty.

Long before the Sixteenth Amendment and the rise of federal income taxes, Martin warned that the new government’s power to tax would concentrate control in the hands of a distant, centralized system – one that could crush the people economically and render the states irrelevant.

His fierce opposition to the Constitution rested on this core concern: centralized taxing power would become a tool of oppression, not protection.

The Constitution introduced a dramatic shift through its expansive taxing power. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to tax individuals directly. It relied instead on requisitions – formal requests for funds submitted to the states.

While many saw this as a fatal weakness, Martin viewed it as a vital safeguard against the kind of unchecked, centralized power he feared most.

ECONOMIC OPPRESSION: THE BIG SQUEEZE

Martin warned that unchecked power to levy taxes would place “the citizens of the respective States” into the “all-powerful hand” of the federal government and subject them to severe economic oppression.

He predicted that the Constitution’s vast new taxing powers would push already struggling people even further into financial ruin.

“It will, by the imposition of the variety of taxes, imposts, stamps, excises, and other duties, squeeze from them the little money they may acquire, the hard earnings of their industry.”

He illustrated the government’s power to extract wealth with a vivid image: “…as you would squeeze the juice from an orange, till not a drop more can be extracted.”

This metaphor underscored the severity of the economic threat Martin saw in the Constitution – and the grim scenario he believed it would unleash. He warned that nearly unlimited federal taxation would financially drain the people, leaving them helpless to meet even their private obligations as well.

Once economically drained by relentless federal demands, the people would be abandoned by the government, left vulnerable, and face ruin at the hands of private creditors “to whose mercy it consigns them.”

UNLIMITED TAXATION POWERS

Martin saw the Constitution’s delegation of taxing power to Congress as a direct threat to state sovereignty and the financial security of the people.

For example, Martin warned explicitly about Congress’s power to tax imports, cautioning that it could impose levies on “every article of commerce imported into these States, to what amount they please,” with no meaningful restraint.

Martin was particularly critical of the power to impose excise taxes, calling it “a power very odious in its nature” because of its intrusive potential. He warned that such taxes could reach into nearly every corner of daily life.

“The Congress may impose duties on every article of use or consumption, – on the food that we eat, on the liquors we drink, on the clothes that we wear, the glass which enlightens our houses, or the hearths necessary for our warmth and comfort.”

Building on these warnings, Martin emphasized that Congress’s taxing powers were so expansive they could touch virtually every aspect of daily life.

“By the power to lay and collect taxes, they may proceed to direct taxation on every individual, either by a capitation tax on their heads, or an assessment on their property.”

He noted that this power began with the “power to lay what duties they please on goods imported,” but would inevitably extend further – piling taxes “on whatever we use or consume.”

He specifically warned about the federal government’s authority to levy “stamp duties to what amount they please, and in whatever case they please,” referring to taxes levied on legal documents and transactions such as the transfer of assets, including real estate, stocks, and personal property.

Martin warned that the burden of taxation wouldn’t stop there. The federal government could then “impose on the people direct taxes, by capitation tax, or by assessment, to what amount they choose.”

Martin vividly described unchecked taxation as a way to bleed the people dry: “To sluice them at every vein, as long as they have a drop of blood, without any control, limitation, or restraint.”

He argued that states were “much better judges of the circumstances of their citizens,” better able to determine “what sum of money could be collected from them by direct taxation, and of the manner in which it could be raised with the greatest ease and convenience to their citizens.”

On the other hand, Martin argued, a distant, centralized government could never manage these matters with the same understanding, knowledge, or sensitivity.

REJECTED PROPOSAL TO LIMIT DIRECT TAXES

Recognizing these dangers, Martin proposed an amendment at the Philadelphia Convention to restrict Congress’s power to impose direct taxes – reserving it only as a last resort and only if a state failed to meet a federal requisition.

This echoed the earlier system under the Articles of Confederation, in which Congress relied on state requisitions rather than taxing the people directly. Each state was responsible for raising its assigned share of revenue, allowing it to manage taxation in ways best suited to its own circumstances.

While most viewed this requisition system as ineffective and cumbersome, Martin saw it as an essential safeguard against unchecked federal power.

Despite his warnings, the majority at the Philadelphia Convention rejected Martin’s proposal.

Martin pointed out that had this amendment been approved, “the dangerous and oppressive power in the general government, of imposing direct taxes on the inhabitants, which it now enjoys in all cases, would have been only vested in it in case of the non-compliance of a State.”

Martin saw this rejection as confirmation of the framers’ true intent: what he called their “aim and desire of increasing the power of the general government, as far as possible, and destroying the powers and influence of the States.”

UNFAIR TAX BURDEN AMONG STATES

Martin also warned that without meaningful constraints, federal taxing power could impose unequal burdens on different states.

Although the Constitution required “all duties, imposts, and excises” to be uniform across states, Martin argued that this requirement offered only superficial protection.

He cautioned that Congress could exploit loopholes in the uniformity clause by strategically taxing goods that were heavily consumed in some states but rarely used in others: “These duties may be laid on articles but little or not at all used in some States, and of absolute necessity for the use and consumption of others.”

Such measures, he warned, could impose heavier burdens on certain states, exacerbating regional inequalities and tensions within the Union.

FEAR OF FEDERAL OVERREACH

Martin’s warnings extended beyond taxation itself. He was equally alarmed by the federal government’s control over tax enforcement, which he believed would expand its intrusive reach into the daily lives of the people.

He warned that the power to collect excise taxes could lead to invasive enforcement and warrantless searches by federal officers: “since it authorizes officers to go into your houses, your kitchens, your cellars, and to examine into your private concerns.”

Martin was also alarmed that federal tax collectors would operate without any accountability to the states.

“Nor is there even a security, that they shall be citizens of the respective States in which they are to exercise their offices.”

He warned that this arrangement would centralize tax enforcement entirely and cut the states out of the process.

Adding to his concerns, Martin pointed out that “the construction of every law imposing any and all these taxes and duties, and directing the collection of them, and every question arising thereon, and on the conduct of the officers appointed to execute these laws and to collect these taxes and duties … are taken away from the courts of justice of the different States, and confined to the courts of the general government.”

Martin feared that this arrangement would leave federal courts, rather than state courts, in complete control of adjudicating disputes over federal taxes and their enforcement. He viewed this as yet another way the general government could erode state sovereignty – and ultimately, the people’s liberty.

A TIMELESS WARNING

Luther Martin’s vivid analogy of squeezing “the juice from an orange” captured the depth of his fears about the Constitution’s taxation powers.

He believed the taxing power would allow Congress to impose unequal burdens across the states, weakening state sovereignty and damaging the economic well-being of the people.

For Martin, the Constitution’s taxing power was just one symptom of a deeper disease: the relentless centralization of power, which he believed would ultimately crush individual liberty.

Martin was sounding the alarm more than 120 years before the Sixteenth Amendment – before the IRS, before federal income taxes, and before the rise of a national enforcement regime. That fact alone gives his warnings serious weight.

These warnings were not the ramblings of a fringe dissenter. They were the calculated concerns of a legal mind who had seen behind the curtain and understood exactly how power could be used – not just in theory, but in practice.

Martin wasn’t merely predicting economic hardship. He was describing the machinery of consolidation – how centralized taxation would serve as both a tool of control and a weapon against the independence of the states.

More than two centuries later, his fears have proven prescient. The very mechanisms he opposed have become the cornerstones of a system where the federal government reaches into every corner of daily life – and state sovereignty is all but symbolic.

For Luther Martin, unchecked taxation wasn’t just bad policy. It was a gateway to tyranny.