[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_veuEhhb1658wti0_ZAig66JOyixENU-N9zhjLQSLfOQ.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000034","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/articles\/1\/essays\/35\/uniformity-clause\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EUniformity Clause\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Article I, Section 8, Clause 1\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E...all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States....\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmong the unsatisfactory aspects of the Confederation government were its inability to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and its weak powers of taxation. The Constitution cured these defects, but thereby created a new danger: the greatly strengthened national government might abuse its powers by oppressing politically weaker groups and strangling the economic activity that the Framers hoped to promote.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the Constitutional Convention, the Uniformity Clause was initially joined with what is now the Port Preference Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 6), which forbids Congress to give preferences \u0022by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue\u0022 to the ports of one state over those of another. Along with other provisions restricting congressional power over taxes and commercial regulations, these two were designed to forestall economically oppressive discrimination. The Port Preference Clause limits both the commerce and taxing powers, whereas the Uniformity Clause applies to the taxing power alone. Their common origin, however, is a sign of their common purpose: each was meant to prevent geographic discrimination that would give one state or region a competitive advantage or disadvantage in its commercial relations with the others.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EBecause the goods and activities that can be taxed are distributed unequally through the country, virtually all duties, imposts, and excises have nonuniform effects. A tax on oil production, for example, will affect certain regions more severely than others. Because the Constitution expressly empowers Congress to levy these taxes, it must also permit some of the nonuniform effects that inevitably accompany them. The principal challenge in interpreting the Uniformity Clause is to distinguish between the kind of nonuniformity that is forbidden by the Constitution and the inevitable nonuniform effects that accompany legitimate duties, imposts, and excises.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn its earliest exposition, the Supreme Court declared that a tax is uniform if it \u0022operates with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found.\u0022 \u003Ci\u003EEdye v. Robertson\u003C\/i\u003E (1884). This rule correctly recognized that the Uniformity Clause was meant to forbid geographically nonuniform taxes without outlawing all geographically nonuniform effects. But the formula is inadequate, because it does not describe the limits on Congress\u0027s discretion to define the \u0022subjects\u0022 of taxation. Suppose, for example, that Congress chose to define the subject of an excise tax as \u0022oil produced in Alaska.\u0022 The rule would be formally satisfied, but the most flagrant geographic discrimination would be possible.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn \u003Ci\u003EUnited States v. Ptasynski\u003C\/i\u003E (1983), a unanimous Court concluded (1) that any tax in which the subject is defined in nongeographic terms satisfies the Uniformity Clause, and (2) that where the subject is defined in geographic terms, the tax will be scrutinized for \u0022actual geographic discrimination.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe first part of this test creates a very large safe harbor for discriminatory taxes, which can almost always be framed without using overtly geographic terminology (for example, \u0022oil whose production might affect caribou populations\u0022). Nor is it clear that the second part of the test puts any real limit on Congress\u0027s power to impose discriminatory and oppressive taxes, for the Court nowhere defined \u0022actual geographic discrimination.\u0022 In fact, the Court went out of its way to emphasize that review of statutes using geographic terminology would be highly deferential. With no promise of effective judicial enforcement, the Uniformity Clause has, at least for the present, apparently been rendered nugatory, save for Congress\u0027s own sense of its obligations under the Constitution.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/Nelson_Lund.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.law.gmu.edu\/faculty\/directory\/fulltime\/lund_nelson\u0022\u003ENelson Lund\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         University Professor, George Mason University School of Law\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000034-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000034-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000034-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000034-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERichard A. Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain 289\u2013293 (1985)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENelson Lund, Comment, \u003Ci\u003EThe Uniformity Clause\u003C\/i\u003E, 51 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1193 (1984)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000034-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEdye v. Robertson, 112 U.S. 580 (1884)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKnowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41 (1900)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnited States v. Ptasynski, 462 U.S. 74 (1983)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000034-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000033\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ESpending Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000036\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ECommerce with Foreign Nations\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000037\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ECommerce Among the States\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000064\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EExport Taxation Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000065\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EPort Preference Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]