Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
The Constitution let Congress tax on its own, so the federal government no longer had to beg the states for money.
A household met that power first in the price of imported goods, because the practical tax was collected at the custom house.
A tradesman used to state paper now lived under a ban on states making paper a legal tender for debts.
Creditors who held revolutionary debt gained a government that could pledge real revenue, which is what made the debt worth funding.
Article I, Section 8 gives Congress power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare.
Section 10 forbids the states to coin money, emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender for debts.
Revenue could now be taken at the ports without a state legislature’s permission.
United States Constitution, Article I, Sections 8 and 10