le in building it. He notes, Its honors and emoluments, however great, can fall to the lot of but a few, compared to the entire number of the community and the multitude who will seek to participate in them. As a result, one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements, while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes (274). On balance, then, only the first group mentioned a really burdened by the taxes they pay. Thus we have tax-payers and tax-consumers (274). In essence, those in control of government can and will systematically pervert the power of taxation unless prevented from doing so. Some people may pay more cause of their class standing and some will more pay more because of their holding, position, etc. In his essay, Calhoun seeks to expose the fiction of a single national interest while assuming the internal commonality of the distinct interests within the nation and the clear affiliation of each person/citizen with on or another such interest. He notes, the dominant majority, for the time, would have the same tendency to oppression and abuse of power which, without the right of suffrage, irresponsible rulers would have (275). Next Calhoun goes into the numerical versus the concurrent majority. This is important because it is an argument between majority rule vs. beliefs of a community. Calhoun notes, when one regards numbers only and considers the whole community as a unit having but one common interest throughout, and collects the sense of the greater number of the whole as that of the community (276). In effect, the greater part of the people is taken as the whole and the government acts upon their beliefs, rather than the beliefs of everyone. This leads to the conclusion that voting is needed and the allotment to each division of the community a representation in the government should be in proportion to the number of people, much like what happens with the Unite...
