In the forty-sixth section of the law it is provided that in case any
State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, after notice given of its
intention to assume and pay or to levy, collect, and pay said direct tax
apportioned to it, should fail to pay the amount of said direct tax, or
any part thereof, it should be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury
to appoint United States officers as in the act provided, whose duty it
should be to proceed forthwith to collect all or any part of said direct
tax "the same as though said State, Territory, or District had not given
notice nor assumed to levy, collect, and pay said taxes or any part
thereof."
A majority of the States undertook the collection of their quotas and
accounted for the amount thereof to the General Government by the
payment of money or by setting off claims in their favor against the
tax. Fifteen per cent of the amount of their respective quotas was
retained as the allowance for collection and payment. In the Northern,
or such as were then called the loyal States, nearly the entire quotas
were collected and paid through State agencies. The money necessary for
this purpose was generally collected from the citizens of the States
with their other taxes, and in whatever manner their quotas may have
been canceled, whether by the payment of money or setting off claims
against the Government, it is safe to say, as a general proposition,
that the people of these States have individually been obliged to pay
the assessments made upon them on account of this direct tax and have
intrusted it to their several States to be transmitted to the Federal
Treasury.
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