Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1798
AUTHOR:
Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
QUOTATION:
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
ATTRIBUTION:
This quotation comes from the words of DANIEL WEBSTER and those of JOHN MARSHALL in the Supreme Court case, McCulloch v. Maryland.
Webster, in arguing the case, said: “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy,” 17 U.S. 327 (1819).
In his decision, Chief Justice Marshall said: “That the power of taxing it [the bank] by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it, is too obvious to be denied” (p. 427), and “That the power to tax involves the power to destroy … [is] not to be denied” (p. 431).
