Where's Waldo

I am currently reading (or trying to read) The Federalist Papers, and finding it rather torturous. I suppose I have to consider the differing style at that time. But I find I have to read one and then read it again to get the whole of it.

Alexander Hamilton I find to be particularly hard to follow. Here is an example of a sentence;

"The quantity of taxes to be paid by the community must be the same in either case; with this advantage--if the provision is to be made by the Union--that the capital resource of commercial imposts, which is the most convenient branch of revenue, can be prudently improved to a much greater extent under federal than under State regulation, and of course will render it less necessary to recur to more inconvenient methods; and with this further advantage, that as far as there may be any real difficulty in the exercise of the power of internal taxation, it will impose a disposition to greater care in the choice and arrangement of the means; and must naturally tend to make it a fixed point of policy in the national administration to go as far as may be practicable in making the luxury of the rich tributary to the public treasury in order to diminish the necessity of those impositions which might create dissatisfaction in the poorer and most numerous classes of the society."

Perhaps the reader can play a game like "Where's Waldo", and see how many dependent clauses he can find in that monstrosity of a sentence.
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Published on April 03, 2020 13:52
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