PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 391 



Court, as given through Justice Miller in the celebrated " Loan 

 Association vs. Topeka " case (20 Wallace, 665): 



" li must he conceded that there are rights in every free govern- 

 ment heyond tlie control of the State. A government which recog- 

 nized no such rights, which held the lives, the liberty, and the 

 property of its citizens subject at all times to the absolute disposi- 

 tion and unbounded control of even the most democratic depository 

 of power, is after all but a despotism. It is true it is a despotism, 

 of the many — of the majority, if you choose to call it so — but it is 

 none the less a despotism.'' 



And yet can there be any doubt that the American people would 

 have abandoned its proud historical position if the Supreme Court 

 had decided in 1885 that the income-tax enactment of 1894 was 

 constitutional ? 



For such a decision would practically have removed any constitu- 

 tional limitation on the exercise of the power of taxation by Con- 

 gress, and in this way: First, by establishing that an income tax is 

 not a direct tax, there can be practically thereafter no direct taxes 

 to which the constitutional mandate of apportionment will apply, for 

 popular sentiment will never sanction the enactment of a general 

 " capitation " or " poll " tax, or a direct tax on land. 



Then it certainly could not be unconstitutional to multiply 

 classes for taxation according to wealth and increase the rate up to 

 the point of confiscation. Can any one, furthermore, doubt that the 

 primary object of the enactment proposed in 1889 was not the raising 

 of revenue for the national Treasury, but rather to permit a part of 

 the people of the country to impose discriminating taxes on the 

 people of another part, and then jS.xing a general exemption at so high 

 a rate that those of the first part, who are entirely able, should not 

 be required to pay anything? If this exemption, in place of 

 $4,000, had been fixed only to include the average annual 

 wages or earnings of the working masses of the country, is it probable 

 that Congress would have even considered the enactment of the 

 income tax of 1884? Even before the form of the statute of 

 1884 was reported from the proper committee, speculation was in- 

 dulged in to the efl^ect that the constituents of certain districts would 

 not have to pay anything in the way of income taxes under it. That 

 the Government also practically conceded that the income-tax enact- 

 ment of 1884 was pre-eminently class legislation is also evident from 

 the following extract from a statement made in a brief by the 

 Attorne;^ General of the United States pending the consideration of 

 the income-tax question by the United States Supreme Court: * 



* By an enactment of Congress, August 18, 1894, establishing an income tax for the 

 United States, a tax of two per cent was imposed on the gains, profits, and incomes of 



