17
of the land” was “peculiarly adapted” to its growth.
57
When southerners objected to the tonnage
duties he thought necessary for growing an American shipping industry, he turned to the time-
honored technique of delaying implementation to a date further in the future (notably used in the
slave importation clause of the Constitution) “to obviate” their complaints.
58
To make tariffs
more politically palatable (and more subject to legislative control), Madison supported a sunset
provision to limit the duration of the impost law.
59
Madison was pleasantly surprised to learn that
political interests were not inflexibly fixed by state boundaries.
60
Beyond the tariff, Madison clearly tilted toward a broad definition of national powers in
1789. He tried to persuade Congress that it had authority to subsidize an exploratory expedition
to Baffin Bay to ascertain the validity of a theory of magnetic variation.
61
He invoked a broad
interpretation of the commerce clause when he argued for a tax on American-built vessels to
establish “some small provision … for the support of light-houses, hospitals for disabled
seamen, and other establishments incident to commerce.”
62
He pressed to collect detailed
census data on “the number of persons employed in the various arts and professions in the
United States," because “on this knowledge the legislature might proceed to make a proper
provision for the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests, but without it they could
never make their provisions in due proportion.”
63
Most strikingly of all, especially in light of later
developments, when newly appointed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton asked his advice
on raising revenues in the fall of 1789, Madison urged Hamilton to consider direct taxes on
liquor and a national tax on land. Madison explicitly hoped to preempt the states from
establishing authority over land taxes.
64
He also pressed for a very broad interpretation of national executive and judicial
powers.
65
He persuaded a wary House that the president should enjoy the power to remove his
appointees at his discretion, rather than seeking legislators’ permission to remove them, thus
establishing a precedent that permanently enhanced presidential independence.
66
Some
Representatives objected to a proposal to allow the Secretary of the Treasury to “digest and
Convention