Speech #450089202

I (lid this certainly with no intention on my part. and I am satisfied with none on the part of any rember of the Committee on the Judiciary who assented to it. to act with any undue haste in the matter. We understood that this was to a certain extent remitting to the courts of the country the particular questions involved. With this belief. on my part at least. that while the States possessed no power. at least. against or without the consent of the United States first expressed. to make any regulations of this kind by which a tax was levied upon immigration. yet it was within the power of the Federal Government to ratify such a tax once levied and where it had gone for the benefit of the parties from whom it had been levied. This was the general view I took of the case without undertaking to go into a critical examiuation of it. and I have not changed from that opinion. That the United States might have levied or authorized the levy of this tax. no one will dihpute.