PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 393 



man ever has done. As long as this great feature is preserved intact 

 and the nation adds to it another principle, that every question of 

 doubt concerning it shall be always determined in a way to 

 strengthen it, the perpetuity of the present Government is assured. 

 But if now the Supreme Court invalidates this great feature by nulli- 

 fying the mandate of the Constitution, and thereby practically re- 

 moves all limitations on the powder of Congress to impose taxes, 

 sanctions discriminating taxation and disregards the rights of minori- 

 ties, the hour when this Government enters upon the path of de- 

 cadence will have struck. How puerile it is for any one to favor such 

 a decision and its inevitable results, on the ground that a contrary 

 decision would oblige the Government to repay to the people a large 

 sum of money that it had illegally collected from them ! This would, 

 however, have one recommendation — namely, that it would approxi- 

 mately solve the difficult question. How much, in terms of money, is 

 the existing Government worth? 



Conclusion. — The following extract, incorporated by Mr. Justice 

 Field in his opinion, delivered in concurrence with a majority 

 of his colleagues, and adverse to the constitutionality of the income- 

 tax statute of 1884, which imposed discriminating taxes on the 

 American people, is also pre-eminently worthy of notice in connec- 

 tion with any general history or review of this great subject: 



" Here I close. I could not say less in view of questions of such 

 gravity that go down to the very foundation of the Government. H 

 the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an act of Con- 

 gress, where is the course of usurpation to end ? The present assault 

 upon capital is but the beginning. It wdll be but the stepping-stone 

 to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will 

 become a war of the poor against the rich — a war constantly grow- 

 ing in intensity and bitterness. ' If the court sanctions the power of 

 discriminating taxation, and nullifies the uniformity mandate of the 

 Constitution,' as said by one who has been all his life a student of 

 our institutions, ' it will mark the hour when the sure decadence of 

 our present Government will commence.' If the purely arbitrary 

 limitation of four thousand dollars in the present law can be sus- 

 tained, none having less than that amount of property being assessed 

 or taxed for the support of the Government, the limitation of future 

 Congresses may be fixed at a much larger sum, at five or ten or twenty 

 thousand dollars, parties possessing that amount alone being bound to 

 bear the burdens of government; or the limitation may be designated 

 at such an amount as a board of walking delegates may deem neces- 

 sary. There is no safety in allowing the limitation to be adjusted 

 except in strict compliance with the mandates of the Constitution 

 which require its taxation to be uniform in operation and, so far as 



