Some of my readers think that I don’t believe the Federal Government should do anything. Especially if they read “What Are You Willing to Give Up?” So they might presume I don’t believe in the census. But I do. You see, as I have stated repeatedly in these articles, I believe in the Constitution. The Constitution is not perfect but it is still a great document. It is a contract between the government and the states. That sort of makes it a contract between the government and you. And me.
The census was authorized by the Constitution in Article I, Section 2. It was placed there for the purpose of knowing how many citizens the country had. More specifically, how many citizens each state had. There were two reasons to know this information.
Stand up and be counted.
The first reason is the House of Representatives.
“The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative . . . “
So by counting the population of each state, it could be determined how many representatives the state should have. The idea was to divide the population of each state by 30,000 and the whole number answer would be the number of representatives that state would get. If the state had less than 30,000 population, it would get one representative.
Not more than one representative for every 30,000 was in the Constitution and has never been changed, not constitutionally. In 1911 congress decided the house was getting too big. I won’t go into WHY they decided this because I don’t know why for sure. The way I read the Constitution I believe that this relationship of not more than one representative for every 30,000 was something not to be changed. To change it should require an amendment. That was not done. I must admit, however, that the congress of 1911 may have been technically OK in the legislature that froze the house size at 435 members. After all, if there is one for every 600,000 citizens, that is not more than one for every 30,000.
The second reason for the census is taxation. The Constitution allows two methods of taxation. The first is excise taxes as spelled out in Article I, Section 8.
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; . . . “
The founders realized that there would be times when the above taxes would not pay all the bills of the Federal government. So they agreed to allow direct taxes to “ . . . be apportioned among the several States.” These are the only direct taxes allowed. The Federal government was to bill the separate states in ratio to their population. Each state was to determine how to collect from its own citizens. (more…)