It was explained by Justice James Wilson, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Chisholm v Georgia, 2 US 419 (1793), "...how true it is, that States and Governments were made for man; and, at the same time, how true it is, that his creatures and servants have first deceived, next vilified, and, at last, oppressed their master and maker."  "Let a State be considered as subordinate to the PEOPLE: But let every thing else be subordinate to the State."  He noted that in the practice of politics there has been a strong current against the nature of things: "As the State has claimed precedence of the people; so, in the same inverted course of things, the Government has often claimed precedence of the State; and to this perversion in the second degree, many of the volumes of confusion concerning sovereignty owe their existence."  Concerning the State, he noted, "It is an artificial person."  He explained that the term sovereign has, as its correlative, subject.  He also noted that sovereignty is derived from a feudal source, such as existed in Europe.  Sovereigns and subjects were abolished in this country by the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.  A feudal society, and feudal law, is described in the 1870 law dictionary of Judge John Bouvier: "A system of tenures of real property which prevailed in the countries of western Europe during the middle ages, arising from the peculiar political condition of those countries, and radically affecting the law of personal rights and of movable property.  2. Although the feudal system has never obtained in this country, and is long since extinct throughout the greater part of Europe, some understanding of the theory of the system is essential to an accurate knowledge of the English constitution, and of the doctrines of the common law in respect to real property.  The feudal tenure was a right to lands on the condition of performing services and rendering allegiance to a superior lord.  ...It has been said that the system is nothing more than the natural fruit of conquest;...  Some lands were allotted to individuals as their proper estates, and these were termed allodial; but, for the most part, those lands which were not retained by the chieftain he assigned to his comites, or knights, to be held by his permission, in return for which they assured him of their allegiance and undertook for him military service.  ...Every one who held lands upon a feudal tenure was bound, when called upon by his benefactor or immediate lord, to defend him, and such lord was, in turn, subordinate to his superior, and bound to defend him, and so on upwards to the paramount lord or king, who in theory of the law was the ultimate owner of all the lands of the realm."

Judge Abel P. Upshur, considered to be one of the finest legal minds in the United States, Judge of the General Court of Virginia from 1826 to 1841, and Secretary of the Navy in 1841, then Secretary of State, succeeding Daniel Webster in 1843 in the Tyler administration, wrote of the relationship of the general government, the States, and the people, noting that the British subject had his liberties and privileges as a consequence of his allegiance to the King of Great Britain.  This extended to the colonies as long as they were subject to the realm; and these thoughts were ingrained in many of the inhabitants of the colonies.  A congress of representatives of the various colonies, which met from time to time, was a deliberative and advisory body only; inquiring into the state of things in the colonies; airing their grievances with Great Britain; and, most important of all, not wishing to break their ties with the mother country.  An act to unite the colonies into a general, or national, government would have been an act of open rebellion.  Following such oppressions as the Stamp Act, Writs of Assistance, and etc., this deliberative body became bolder in its assertion of the rights of the colonies to unite into a union against these oppressions, and asserted their independence from Great Britain in a declaration entitled, "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America".  The Judge noted that in the acts of this Congress, reference was made to the colonies; not to the people, as such.  This Congress of representatives of the various colonies was not empowered to act directly upon the people.  The citizens were known as citizens of the various States; not of a United States.  The United States was not a party to any compact between the States, but a result of it.  The parties to the compact are the States.  Justice Henry Billings Brown, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, reiterated this in the opinion of the Court in the case of US v Perkins in 1895, declaring that the United States is a corporation; political, or governmental in nature.  The opinions of the various federalists, that the Constitution of the United States was formed by the people, are founded exclusively on the particular terms of the preamble to this instrument; and is an attempt to negate the history of the formation of the United States.  There are those who would argue that through the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the States have lost their suffrage, and are no longer represented in the Senate.  Examining the Seventeenth Amendment reveals that the only thing that was altered was that the States no longer have the privilege of selecting their representatives in the Senate; the people do this for them.  The States are still represented.  Article Five of the Constitution of the United States explains that "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."  Contact with a State Representative of Michigan revealed that there is no document which shows that this State has consented to be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.  The States retain all of the powers not granted by the States to the federal government, as declared in Article Ten of the Bill of Rights; and the people retain all of the powers not granted to either of them.  There is no sovereignty in the United States.  A free State, and a free people, was so important in the minds of those who created the Bill of Rights that Article Two of the Bill of Rights was declared that the right of the people to keep and bear arms for their security shall not be infringed so that the new government would not transcend its powers.  Many believe that the people created the United States government, and that it is a people's government.  It is unreasonable to believe that having created this new constitutional government, the people were so afraid of it that they attached a Bill of Rights to it to protect themselves from it.

It was explained by Justice Ryan of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, quoting from Webster's Works, "...every citizen shall hold life, liberty, property, and immunities under the protection of the general rules which govern society.  Everything which may pass under the form of an enactment is not, therefore, to be considered as the law of the land;" "...if this were so, acts directly transferring one man's estate to another, legislative judgments, decrees, and forfeitures in every possible form would be the law of the land.  There would be no general, permanent law for the courts to administer or even to live under.  The administration of justice would be an empty form, an idle ceremony.  Judges would sit to execute legislative judgments and decrees, and not to declare the law, or administer the justice of the country."  Professor Edward S. Corwin, a most respected scholar of the United States Constitution, and Natural Law, stated that the underlying doctrine of American Constitutional Law is the Doctrine of Vested Rights; property rights being fundamental; and "treats any law impairing vested rights, whatever its intention, as a bill of pains and penalties, and so, void."  He also stated that government controlled rights is but a despotism.

The American people are beginning to realize that a contraction of the currency and a contraction of commerce are both dangerous to labor and liberty.  pg 52

Labor is prior to and independent of capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed, if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. -Abraham Lincoln-  pg 53

When your pompous, protected manufacturer and monopolist stays at home, spends his money in America, toils with his hands and brains for the good of humanity, and requires his children to labor with their hands and heads and recognizes the poorest laborer as his equal before the law, who can not be discharged, disgraced, have his wages reduced, and the wage-earner and family is not dependent on the whims or will of his employer, but can only be discharged or have his wages reduced by a just tribunal; when the law shall make it a felony for the employer to command the vote, either directly or indirectly, of the workingmen who are under him, then, and not until then, am I ready to listen to these legalized leeches.  I know that there are so many of them and that they have grown so vigorous that the task of shaking them from the body politic is infinitely greater than that of Hercules's "Augean-stable contract", or even of all his twelve tasks, for these protected industries are more remarkable than the great hydra of Lenæ.  Cut off one head and ten heads grow in the place.  pg 56

Before I conclude I want to say to the laboring men of this country if you want real protection, manhood and womanhood protection, stand up for that party which proposes to place you on an equal level before the law; that gives you the right to trade and labor with the world; that proposes to make the property of this country pay the burdens of keeping up the Government; that proposes to see to it that immense fortunes are not made to be expended abroad out of the results of your labor while you are starved at home; that proposes to place it within your power to buy the necessities of life without the burden of any tax or protection whatever; and let me call your attention, laboring men of the United States, to the fact that the men who are standing here and so eloquently and so earnestly defending protection are ridiculing and denouncing an income tax, when every one of them knows, as well as he knows who puts up his campaign funds for him, that an income tax will not touch a hair upon the head of a laboring man in the United States.  [Great applause]   pg 57

On the other hand, I assume that no man by his own industry and exertion can honestly earn an annual income for a long period of years of over $25,000, and the rule is in nearly all cases, so far as my knowledge extends of persons in the United States receiving incomes of over $25,000, that their incomes come to them without exertion on their part or through some unfair and vicious system, where special privileges have been obtained either by legislation, combines, or speculations, where multitudes have been overreached, and the products of their labor been gathered in by the few.  The families of such frequently spend much of their time and money abroad living in idle indulgence while their property, the foundation of their incomes, is not only receiving protection at the hands of this Government, but the income itself smells of oppression, misery, and want.  [Applause]   pg 57

This method lays the burdens on those possessing the ability to pay, and compels those who reap the largest harvests under the sunshine of our generous institutions to give more of that harvest for the common good.  I know that many wealthy men are generous and charitable, and for such I have none but the kindest words.  On the other hand, the majority of the very wealthy are haughty, overbearing, autocratic, mean, and it is that class in particular that the income tax is designed to reach.  Some of the wealthiest men in the United States are practically escaping taxation and contributing not a dollar to the support of the Government, and while crying out for protection for the industry that has made them rich they are buying their clothing and the clothing of their families in the free-trade markets of England made by the pauper hands that they declaim against.  [Laughter and applause.]   pg 57

An income tax places burdens upon accumulated wealth, where they can be most easily borne.  It is right, because it exacts tribute of accumulation and not of endeavor.  ...The artisan who goes forth to labor for his daily bread must pay upon the tools he works with; the brickmason upon his trowel, the carpenter upon his chisel and plane, the wood-chopper upon his ax, the miner upon his pick, and so on through all the list of wage-earners, yet none escape taxes upon what they eat and wear.  The wealth of corporations escape all this tax to support our Federal Government.  They bear none of the other burdens that the citizen is compelled to bear.  The citizen owes to the Government military and jury duty, but corporations bear neither of these burdens.  ...How often do the wage-earners, the bone and sinew of the country, call for the machinery of the Federal Government to be put in motion for their aid?  Scarcely at all.  Yet this industrial class go on day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year toiling for daily bread, asking nothing of the Government but to be let alone and given a chance to gain an honest living.  In times of peace they are the busy bees who create the wealth upon which the idle and indolent feed, and in times of war they are the patriots who fight the battles of the nation.  Under the Constitution they are all subject to be called by the President to do military duty to protect the property of aggregated wealth that under our present system escapes its just proportion of taxation.  ...How is it with corporate wealth?  The Congress, the courts, and all the branches of the Government are almost daily engaged in dealing with the affairs of corporate wealth.  And to protect the property of these greedy corporations the whole Army and Navy of the United States is at their command.  pg 71

Labor is the producer of all enjoyable and utilized wealth.  No wealth exists without it.  ...Labor is the author and basis of the prosperity and strength of all communities; it is the hope, the instrumentality, and the foundation of all individual progress and content.  ...While it is true a tariff is a tax, yet it is not a money demand of the Government against the citizen, and the Government can not inaugurate any process by which the demand can be collected.  I am not speaking now of the proceedings at the custom-house to collect the revenue, but I am illustrating the operation of a tariff tax upon the masses.     If one has not the money to buy a coat, the Government can not compel him to purchase, and he pays no taxes under the tariff system unless he buys goods; and if by any frugality or self-denial he can get on without the use of the goods he pays no tax.  pg 101
 

But, Mr. Speaker, if there was no reduction upon any item of the McKinley bill, there is one provision in the act which alone entitles it to our support.  I refer to the income tax.  Under this act we are equalizing the burdens of taxation and imposing upon the wealth of the country its share of these burdens.  No valid argument can be made why this feature of this act is not just and fair.  Under the present law almost every dollar of taxes is raised by tax upon what the people consume.  It is raised by the tax upon whisky and tobacco, but the far greater part is obtained by import duties upon the clothes the people wear and other necessaries of life.  A millionaire pays only to the General Government tax upon what he consumes.  The laborer of the country contributes his share of the expenses of the Government by paying tax upon what he consumes.  The vast accumulations of corporations and the wealth of the country contribute nothing else to the support of the Government.  pg 1393

When the income-tax amendment was suggested in the debate of 1909 it was first brought into the Senate, as I remember, by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Bailey].  The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Cummins] also offered such an amendment, and afterwards, as I recall, the two amendments became one amendment by agreement between the parties, and was finally submitted to the Senate in that form.  It was ascertained at the time in that debate and during the discussion of the tariff votes in the Senate to pass that income-tax amendment.  It therefore became necessary in the minds of those who were opposed to the amendment to submit some proposition which would secure a sufficient number of votes to defeat the income-tax amendment, and I do not reveal any secret when I say that the corporation tax was brought here for the purpose of defeating the income-tax amendment.  If it had been believed at that time by those who were opposed to the income-tax amendment that the Supreme Court of the United States would again hold it unconstitutional there would not have been that great anxiety to defeat it here in the Senate.  But for fear that it would be held constitutional, for fear that we would have a law which would tax the great idle incomes of this country and tax them probably in such a way that they could not transfer it to those who were already bearing the tax burden, the corporation tax proposition was submitted in its stead.  Of course every body who finally voted for the corporation tax was not thus controlled in purpose.  But its origin was due to the fear of passing an income tax which would finally become an effective law.  ...Now, Mr. President, why was it that there was a desire to defeat the income tax with the corporation tax?  If it be true that the corporation tax reached the same parties and that it is not possible to transfer that tax, but that those pay it who we assume pay it, why was it that the corporation tax was brought here in place of the income tax?  It was for the reason that it was well understood that it is much easier, as has been more than once demonstrated, to transfer the corporation tax so that it will be finally paid by the consumer or those who do business with the corporations of the country.  The tax is transferred to the consumer or to those who pay the ultimate price for the things purchased of the corporations doing business.  That is true in all cases where the corporation is engaged in a field whence competition has been practically driven.  The large corporations, the monopolistic corporations, those with the power to fix prices without hesitancy and without any difficulty add this tax to the price of the article which they are selling.  The result is, assuming, as we do, that we are taxing corporations which could well afford to pay the tax by reason of their large incomes, we are, in fact, taxing the same people and the same taxpayers who pay the consumption tax to-day.  ...Take, for instance, the case of the express companies.  In 1898, I believe, a tax was placed upon the express companies.  The express companies openly and announcedly placed the tax upon the parties doing business with the express companies; added it to the cost of the expressage.  There came up to the Supreme Court from the State of Michigan a case in which the question was litigated as to whether or not there was any method by which to hold this tax upon the express company upon whom it had been laid.  The Supreme Court held that it was not within the power of the law to fix and establish definitely the incident of the tax.  The result was that the tax which we placed upon these companies was immediately and without any effort of concealment passed on to those who were doing business with the express companies.    pg 9687  

In 1898 a tax was put upon companies engaged in the business of refining sugar, refining oil, and manufacturing and selling tobacco.  It is well known - no longer disputed - that that entire tax was passed on to the consumer, and one peculiar feature of the history of that matter is that after the tax was repealed the companies omitted to take off the extra charge which they had placed there by reason of the tax.  It is for that reason that I voted against the corporation tax, and it is for that reason I am opposed to that system of taxation now.  It is a subterfuge.  It is dealing in duplicity with the people of this country.  It pretends to tax wealth, and only furnishes a means for wealth to impose more burdens upon those whose burdens are already too great.  Those who are so sensitive about putting this question up to the court again ought to display more sensitiveness about misleading the people, to their increased injury.     pg 9688

In order to make my remarks sufficiently connected, I wish to go back a moment to the experience we had in 1898.  In 1898 we put a tax upon the large corporations engaged in the refining of sugar, the large companies engaged in the manufacturing and sale of tobacco, and upon companies engaged in refining oils.  A number of those companies were taxed, and the tax was sustained in what is known as the Spreckles case.  ...It was argued at the time that tax was laid that it was a call upon the part of the country to these large corporations to take a portion of their large income to sustain the burdens of the war; that it was an extraordinary period; and even those who were opposed to that kind of taxation were willing to yield for a time in the emergency in which we found ourselves upon the supposition that these large corporations would pay that tax.  It was conceded that the people were already taxed too much to take on these extra burdens, and that consumption should be relieved and wealth should take a portion of the weight.  ...Now, Mr. President, what was the fact?  What is the historic evidence, uncontrovertible and undenied, that every dollar of the large sum supposed to be laid upon the corporations was paid by the common people of this country in the increased price which the corporations made on their articles to the consumer.  The tobacco monopoly not only put it on the price and kept it there while the tax was there, but it put it on the price and kept it there after the tax was taken off.  It decreased the size of its package.  It met the situation in one way or another; and I am not misstating an uncontrovertible historic fact when I say that every dollar of this increased taxation was unquestionably paid by the consumers of this country, who were already bearing the principal part of our taxes.     pg 9689

Here is a historic illustration.  Let me ask the Senator does he have any doubt that when you lay a tax upon the incomes of these large corporations, which are doing business in a noncompetitive field, they will pass that tax on to the consumer?  Now, I admit that you may by this tax tax a certain form of wealth.  You tax that wealth which is in the field of competition where they can not so successfully pass it on.  You tax the small business man, the small corporations composed of those people, already the small owners, the small property holders in the community, and already paying their undue proportion of the tax.  That is the class of people it is desired to exempt, whom I would relieve, and I want to reach those who have the vast incomes, who now do not pay anything whatever to the support of the Government.     pg 9690

Taxes seem to seek the low man with inevitable and remorseless certainty.  All efforts to equalize the burdens of taxation according to the rule of ability to pay have so far failed, and only in a slight degree are we now improving upon the experiences of the past.  That form of wealth now most remunerative most easily escapes taxation or most easily passes the tax on in the way of increasing prices to those less able to pay.  Wealth should not bear all the burdens of government.  Every man should in some way respond to the call of the government under whose institutions he lives and whose protection he enjoys.  The contention has not been and is not now to place all the burdens of government upon wealth, but only its proper proportion under the golden rule of taxation that such burdens should be based upon the ability to bear them.  ...There will never be a system of taxation devised, however, which will prevent the transfer of an undue proportion of taxes to those who can least afford to pay them.  The income tax will not accomplish this entirely, but as a part of a system of taxation it goes far toward accomplishing it and though not wholly, yet it will to a marked extent relieve those who are paying too much and reach those who are either not paying enough or worst still nothing at all, comparatively speaking.  ...History reveals with unvarying monotony the effort and the success of the strong to place all taxes necessary to sustain the government upon the weak.  Solon, the wisest political leader of antiquity, when called upon to write the laws for the Athenians, found those in power who were privileged by birth and transferred the control from those of such privileges to those of wealth.  But while he gave wealth the power he also imposed upon it all the burdens of government.  He made their obligations to the government correspond to their power in the government.  But immediately after Solon's death wealth at once transferred the burdens of taxation to the poor, but sought to retain the power of government.  The result is familiar to all and I shall not take time to recount it.  It was Balzac, the great French novelist, I think, who said "Money never yet missed the smallest opportunity of being stupid."  ...It is not too much to say that the brutal system of taxation which prevailed and had prevailed for years was one of the contributing causes of the French Revolution.  Practically the whole enormous burden of government was borne by the middle and the peasant classes.  Fully three-fifths of the land, that part which belonged to the King or to the nobility, was exempt from taxation.  Upon the balance, two-fifths, was laid almost entirely by direct taxes.  In addition to this every conceivable form of business was taxed - that principle which we are now extending in this country with such haste prevailed in all its logical details.  The peasant starting from a Province to Paris with a cask of wine would pay toll sixteen times before he reached Paris to the feudal lords and the King.  His hay, pigs, chickens, and everything paid proportionate toll before he reached the market.  He could not marry or christen his child or bury his dead or pursue any kind of business without paying the excise tax.  Arthur Young, who traveled extensively in France, estimated that out of every $16 earned or realized by the peasant he paid $12 in taxes of some kind.  It should be remembered, too, that at this very time France was rich in her natural resources and healthy in her economic conditions.  If the burdens of government had been properly distributed the people would have been prosperous and contented.  ...While all this was going on and the people were groaning under the weight the great estates were exempt.  Wealth had succeeded in shifting the whole burden of taxation to the poor.  The golden rule of taxation was to whomsoever hath shall be given more and from whomsoever hath not shall be taken what he hath.  ...Turgot made a heroic effort to impose a tax upon the basis of ability to pay - that is, in effect, to equalize taxation.  He sought to impose a tax upon the nobility and upon the great estates.  Had he been successful in his plan there would have been no French Revolution in my opinion.  The well-meaning, weak King stood by his minister for a time, but finally yielded to the demands of the nobility, and the weight of the government was placed back upon the middle class and the peasantry.  The French Revolution was a fearful thing, but it was the most splendid demonstration of the law of retribution ever known among men.  It would have been more agreeable if its fearful executions could have taken place in a more orderly way, but it was in accord with the decree of eternal justice for them to take place.  Reason and argument no longer had any effect with the nobility; nothing could move them to a sense of justice or divorce them from their selfishness and brutality except a most terrible slaughter.  ...The History of taxation in the United States from a national standpoint has not been dissimilar to the history of taxation in other countries.  We are young yet, but we have made progress.  There has been the same struggle to transfer the tax to the low man, to those least able to pay it.  That struggle has been so successful in operation as to practically change the Constitution of the United States.  When the fathers formed our Constitution they placed no limit, save as to exports, upon the power of the National Government to tax anything and everything, and established but two rules, apportionment as to direct taxes, and uniformity as to indirect.  The more we consider the scheme of the fathers the wiser it seems.  It was broad and all encompassing, and had it been carried out faithfully would have been efficient to do justice in taxation.     pg 9691

There is not a line or an intimation anywhere to be found that I have been able to discover which holds that you can lay an excise tax upon an individual for the mere right of engaging in his natural right to carry on some kind of business.  He has no advantage over his neighbor.  He stands in no peculiar relation to the business world.  He has nothing exceptional upon which to place a tax.  He is one of the members of a community, and therefore he passes entirely outside of that class who occupy a peculiarly and singularly advantageous position as does a corporate entity.     pg 9693

Allow me to call the attention of the Senator from Georgia now to another part of the bill, which I mentioned a few moments ago, for I am anxious to understand the interpretation of those who have studied and who are defending the measure.  I call the attention of the Senator from Georgia, as I did of the Senator from Idaho, while he was speaking, the junior Senator from Georgia then being absent from the Chamber, to the provision on page 10.  I trust I am not interrupting or unduly interrupting the senior Senator from Georgia.        ...These questions are very interesting to me, and will determine more or less my action in the matter.  This provision provides:

...Now, suppose a firm or corporation were to pay to Mr. A for salary or compensation more than $5,000 per year.  Suppose that Mr. A was not engaged in any business whatever, within any meaning which the Senator from Georgia attaches to that word.  Would not the tax be still levied and still paid, and would not that be true if it were paid as interest to a person not engaged in business, or would it not be true if it were paid as rent to a person not engaged in business; and if these things are true, does not the bill, in this respect at least, embody the precise doctrine of an income-tax law separated and dissociated entirely from any business in which the person who pays the tax may be engaged?     pg 9696

My understanding of this provision of the bill is that it is a mode of collection; that it does not propose to levy the tax except where the person whose money is withheld falls within the taxable provisions of the bill, and the party whose money is so temporarily withheld, returns having been made according to the provisions read by the Senator from Iowa, can present his view of the case before the internal-revenue collector, and if he sustains his claim that he is not subject to the tax, then the tax would not be levied.

Upon this question, as suggested by the distinguished Senator from Georgia, I believe that the act now pending before the Senate, as reported to the Senate by the committee, originating in the House, is unconstitutional.  I believe that Congress has not the power to extend its excise tax over natural persons exercising a natural right under the Constitution, and that the Supreme Court of the United States in the determination of the Flint case, as evidenced by the extract read therefrom by the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH], confines, and intended to confine, its decision of that right, so far as it does exist under the Constitution, to levying a tax of this kind on artificial creatures who have no existence except by virtue of law and have no rights except by virtue of the law.     pg 9698

It is a maxim of law that: "What one has paid knowing it not to be due, with the intention of recovering it back, he cannot recover back." — Dig. 2. 6. 50;   Judge John Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1870  Vol. 2  pg 154  

It is stated in the Constitution of the United States, concerning direct taxes: "...direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers,..." — United States Constitution   Art. 1 § 2 cl. 3

"No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." — United States Constitution   Art. 1 § 9 cl. 4

A direct tax is a capitation tax, and a tax upon property.  The Black's Law Dictionary, second edition, declares a capitation tax to be: "A tax or imposition raised on each person in consideration of his labor, industry, office, rank, etc." — Black's Law Dictionary    Second Edition

The Constitution states, concerning excise taxes: "...all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;..." — United States Constitution   Art. 1 § 8 cl. 1

Mr. Justice William R. Day, delivering the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, explained what an excise tax is: "Excises are "taxes laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, and upon corporate privileges."  Cooley, Const. Lim. 7th ed. 680         ...the requirement to pay such taxes involves the exercise of privileges,..." — Stella P. Flint v Stone Tracy Company    220 US 107, 151, 152 (1911)

James Madison's notes of the Federal Convention of delegates from the several States which formed the Constitution of the United States show that the subject of direct taxation was discussed on the date 13 July 1787, a Friday, during convention .  On the proposal for imposition of direct taxation, Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate at the convention from Massachusetts, moved to add an amendment that the direct taxes "be assessed on the inhabitants of the several States according to the number of their Representatives respectively in the 1st branch".  This amendment failed to pass.

"Mr Gerry finding that the loss of the question had proceeded from an objection with some, to the proposed assessment of direct taxes on the inhabitants of the States, which might restrain the Legislature to a poll tax, moved his proposition again, but so varied as to authorise the assessment on the States,..."   — Madison's Journal of the Federal Convention   Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States   Sixty-ninth Congress   First Session   House Document No. 398   pg 370

This proposition passed.  It is also shown, from Mr. Madison's journal, that on the date 21 August 1787, Tuesday, Mr. Luther Martin, a delegate to the Convention from the State of Maryland, proposed: "And whenever the Legislature of the US: shall find it necessary that revenue should be raised by direct taxation, having apportioned the same, according to the above rule on the several States, requisitions shall be made of the respective States to pay into the Continental Treasury their respective quotas within a time in the said requisitions specified, and in case of any of the States failing to comply with such requisitions, then and then only to devise and pass acts directing the mode, and authorizing the collection of the same."

Mr. James McHenry, another delegate from Maryland, seconded the motion.  There was no debate.  The motion was put to vote, and defeated by a vote of 8 to 1.  The Congress was denied the power to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States, but was granted the power to apportion the direct taxes to the States to pay.  In 1789, during a session of the House of Representatives, considering the Bill of Rights, one of the amendments proposed: "No direct tax shall be laid, unless any State shall have neglected to furnish, in due time, its proportion of a previous requisition; in which case Congress may proceed to levy, by direct taxation, within any State so neglecting, its proportion of such requisition, together with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum, from the time it ought to have been furnished, and the charges of levying the same." — Annals of Congress   Tuesday 18 August 1789 pg 762; Saturday 22 August 1789 pg 773-777

What the proposition had in mind was that if the State failed to pay its proportional part of the direct tax levies upon it, the Congress could go into the State and levy the direct tax upon the inhabitants of the State, and collect the money owed by the State, with interest.  This proposition failed by a vote of 39 to 9.  On the date 7 September 1789, Monday, the Amendments that had been assembled by the House of Representatives were considered by the Senate.  The Senate proceeded to add the same proposition concerning direct taxes that had failed in the House (Annals of Congress, pg 76).  This proposition failed in the Senate also.  Mr. Crumpacker, Congressman from Indiana, explained how the direct taxation system of the Constitution worked in a speech on the floor of the Congress: "The framers of the Constitution had in mind the fact that the States would largely raise local revenues from a direct tax upon personal and real property.  It was believed that this would be the chief source of local taxation, and the power granted to the federal Government to impose a direct tax was granted upon condition that the Government should estimate the amount of revenue it might require from that source and apportion the sum among the States on the basis of population as shown by the preceding census.  This plan was intended to give the States the right to contribute their pro rata share from their own revenues without complicating their local systems of taxation.  This was regarded as a matter of much importance to the States.  A direct tax imposed upon the same property by two different governments might involve embarrassment and unnecessary expense in enforcement.  It was believed that the General Government would secure adequate revenues for ordinary purposes from customs and excise taxes, and would only have occasion to levy direct taxes in great national exigencies.  With the power to levy and collect direct taxes vested in the Federal Government it was thought that the States would increase their local levies and pay their respective shares, and to enable them to do so the per capita basis of apportionment was fixed."  — Congressional Record   House of Representatives  18 March 1912   pg 3574

Congressman Crumpacker had stated that the Federal government, in laying a direct tax, decides how much money is needed to be raised for a particular project, lays it upon the States, apportioned according to the number of the population of that State, according to the latest census, and confirmed by the number of Representatives from that State in the House of Representatives, and the States decide how it will be laid upon its inhabitants; to be laid upon their real property, or maybe their dwellings.  The Federal Government cannot, constitutionally, lay the tax directly upon the inhabitants of the States.  The framers of the Constitution of the United States well knew the meaning of a direct tax when they were assembling the Articles of the Constitution, as did the legislators and lawyers of the later nineteenth century, as shown by the brief exhibited in the case of Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 US 601, 607 (1895).  Direct taxes, laid by States upon their inhabitants, had been legislated before, as shown by the statutes of the various States.  The Justices of the United States Supreme Court also recognized the direct taxes in their opinion: "From the report of Oliver Wolcott, when Secretary of the Treasury, on direct taxes, to the House of Representatives, December 14, 1796, his most important state paper, (Am: State Papers, 1 Finance, 431) and the various state laws then existing, it appears that prior to the adoption of the Constitution nearly all the States imposed a poll tax, taxes on land, on cattle of all kinds, and various kinds of personal property, and that, in addition, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina assessed their citizens upon their profits from professions, trades, and employments." — Charles Pollock v The Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.   157 US 429, 559 (1895)

Chief Justice Edward D. White, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, and quoting from a previous case, stated: "In the matter of taxation, the Constitution recognizes the two great classes of direct and indirect taxes, and lays down two rules by which their imposition must be governed, namely: The rule of apportionment as to direct taxes, and the rule of uniformity as to duties, imposts and excises.  Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Company   157 US 429, 557 (1895)" — Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co.  240 US 1, 13 (1916)

In the Brushaber case, a government tax being involved, the Solicitor General of the United States, arguing for the federal income tax, stated: "Apportionment being restricted to direct taxes only..., the 16th Amendment, in removing that restriction, recognized any tax upon income "from whatever source derived" as a direct tax, and, as such, subject to the apportionment rules unless specially exempted." — Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co.   60 L. Ed 493, 496 (1916)

Mr. Chief Justice White, recognizing the confusion that existed concerning these taxes, stated, in the opinion of the Court: "...the confusion ...arises from the conclusion that the Sixteenth Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation, that is, a power to levy an income tax which although direct should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes.  And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it,...  ...it clearly results that the proposition and the contentions under it, if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned.  Moreover, the tax authorized by the Amendment, being direct, would not come under the rule of uniformity applicable under the Constitution to other than direct taxes, and thus it would come to pass that the result of the Amendment would be to authorize a particular direct tax not subject either to apportionment or to the rule of geographical uniformity, thus giving power to impose a different tax in one State or States than was levied in another State or States.  This result instead of simplifying the situation and making clear the limitations on the taxing power, which obviously the Amendment must have been intended to accomplish, would create radical and destructive changes in our constitutional system and multiply confusion." — Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co.  240 US 1, 11, 12 (1916)

And further: "...the contention that the Amendment treats a tax on income as a direct tax although it is relieved from apportionment and is necessarily therefore not subject to the rule of uniformity as such rule only applies to taxes which are not direct, thus destroying the two great classifications which have been recognized and enforced from the beginning, is also wholly without foundation..." — Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co.  240 US 1, 18 (1916)

The Chief Justice reiterated this in another case: "...by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment..."  — Stanton v Baltic Mining Company   240 US 103, 112 (1916)

The government also contended that the Court did not have jurisdiction due to the statute that forbid suit for restraint of the collection of a tax.  The Chief Justice disposed of this, stating: "...we are of opinion that the contention here made that there was no jurisdiction of the cause since to entertain it would violate the provisions of the Revised Statutes referred to is without merit." — Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad Co.  240 US 1, 10 (1916)

The Chief Justice has explained that the Congress of the United States had no intention of destroying the two great classes of taxation by the wording of the Sixteenth Amendment, but placed an income tax into the category of taxation in which it inherently belonged; the indirect class, or excise.  He explained that because the tax is not apportioned, nor subject to the census or enumeration, it is an excise tax, a tax upon the exercise of privileges, such taxes not being subject to the condition of apportionment to the States.  Mr. James C. Carter, an attorney, and a most respected member of the bar of New York, arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States for his client, Continental Trust Co., and for the governments' new income tax, 28 Stat. 509, 553, summed up the efforts of the lawmakers: "The view taken by the Congress which passed the tax law in question is plain on its face.  The object was to redress in some degree the flagrant inequality by which the great mass of the people were made to furnish nearly all the revenue, and leave the very wealthy classes to furnish very little of it in comparison with their means.  Of course, nothing, therefore, was to be taken from the wages of labor, or from very small incomes proceeding from other sources than labor." — Charles Pollock v The Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.   157 US 429, 517 (1895)

Mr. Justice Pitney, delivering an opinion of the United States Supreme Court, declared: "We must reject in this case, as we have rejected in cases arising under the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909 (Doyle v Mitchell Bros. Co., 247 US 179; other citations omitted) the broad contention submitted in behalf of the government that all receipts - everything that comes in - are income within the proper definition of the term "gross income", and that the entire proceeds of a conversion of capital assets, in whatever form and under whatever circumstances accomplished, should be treated as gross income.  Certainly the term "income" has no broader meaning in the 1913 Act than in that of 1909 (see Stratton's Independence v Howbert,  231 US 399, 416, 417)" — Southern Pacific Co. v John Z. Lowe, Jr.   247 US 330 (1918)

Professor Edward S. Corwin stated, in introduction to Senate Document No. 92-82, The Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and Interpretation, published by the Congressional Research Department of the Library of Congress, concerning the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Pollock v Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., "...the Court accepted Mr. Joseph Choate's invitation to 'correct a century of error'."  Mr. Choate, arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States as attorney for appellants Mr. Charles Pollock and Mr. Lewis H. Hyde, noted that government had argued that there was a tax which was in character somewhere between the direct tax and the indirect tax; a tax which did not require apportionment to the States, nor uniformity throughout the country; and that such a tax had been imposed upon the States' inhabitants now and then for the past 100 years, recalling the case of Hylton v US.  At issue in the Hylton case was a carriage tax levied upon carriages kept by persons for their personal use; a tax believed to have been proposed by Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury for the United States.  Hamilton was a Federalist; the Federalists being known at the time as seeking to expand the powers of the federal government beyond the scope of the Constitution.  It was argued by the federalists that a tax upon carriages could not be properly apportioned among the States because some States had fewer carriages than others, and, therefore, it could not be a direct tax, but was an indirect tax, or excise.  Although the tax was to be imposed upon the carriage, it was known that the person who owned the carriage would be the one who would pay the tax.  Constitutionalists argued, in the Congress, while the bill was heatedly debated, that the tax was, in fact, upon persons who owned such carriages, and was a direct tax upon the person, or his property, and was unconstitutional; direct taxes, under the Constitution of the United States, were to be apportioned to the States, and not the States' inhabitants.  The Constitutionalists lost the argument, and the bill became law on 5 June 1794.  James Madison had written to Thomas Jefferson: "This is another proof of the facility with which usurpation triumphs where there is a standing corps always on the watch for favorable conjunctures, and directed by the policy of dividing their honest but undiscerning adversaries."

In September 1794, when the tax was to be collected, Daniel L. Hylton, of Williamsburg, Virginia, along with many other prominent citizens of Virginia, refused to pay the tax, declaring that it was a direct tax and not imposed according to the Constitution of the United States.  Mr. Hylton owned one carriage, and the tax upon this carriage was $8.  The penalty for not paying the tax was a like amount of $8, making a demand by government of $16 upon Mr. Hylton.  In order for a case to be brought through the federal court system to the Supreme Court of the United States, at that time, required, jurisdictionally, that the amount in controversy be not less than $2000.  Alexander Hamilton, retired from his duties as Secretary of Treasury by the time the case was to be tried, and retained by government to defend the tax, proposed a legal fiction, making declaration that Mr. Hylton owned 125 carriages with a tax of $1000, and a penalty of $1000, for a total of $2000, to be discharged by payment of $16 to the government.

Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in his book Ancient Law, first published in 1861, wrote of the legal fiction: "Fictio, in old Roman Law, is properly a term of pleading, and signifies a false averment on the part of Plaintiff which the Defendant was not allowed to traverse; such, for example, as an averment that the plaintiff was a Roman citizen, when in truth he was a foreigner.  The object of these "fictiones" was, of course, to give jurisdiction, and they therefore strongly resembled the allegations in the writs of the English Queens Bench and Exchequer, by which those Courts contrived to usurp the jurisdiction of the Common Pleas."

He explained that the Legal Fiction: "...conceals, or affects to conceal, the fact that a rule of law has undergone alteration, its letter remaining unchanged, its operation being modified.  ...The fact is ...that the law has been wholly changed; the fiction is that it remains what it always was."

Argument was brought before the federal Circuit Court in Richmond, Virginia, 27 May 1795 in the case of United States v Daniel Lawrence Hylton.  The Court being divided, consent was given that judgment be entered against Mr. Hylton for the benefit of Writ of Error to the Supreme Court of the United States for ultimate judgment.  Arguments of counsel before the Supreme Court were not reported in the case, but a pamphlet, which propounded the arguments before the Circuit Court in Virginia, pro and con, was published.  The appeals case before the federal Circuit Court was appellant Hylton v US; counsel for appellant being John Taylor of Virginia.  He argued that a direct tax, generally, was one laid upon the person or his property, the person paying the tax directly to the payee, where a third person was not interposed between "the real payer and the payee" as in the case of the indirect taxes, or excises.  To lay such a tax upon the person, and call it an excise tax, was an "Evasion of the intention of the Constitution by a subterfuge...".  He argued that the definition of an excise tax that was used in England could not be used in the United States, for in England an excise tax was laid upon just about everything that everybody owned.  The Constitution laid restrictions on the Congress concerning taxes, and specifically, the direct taxes, which were to be apportioned to the States to pay.  He expressed an "awful suspicion" that since the new Carriage Tax would produce but a trivial sum, it had been enacted not for the money but to serve as a precedent for future use.  He also argued that the American confederation "is not a compact of individuals, it is a compact of states."  The Constitution's mandate for "a proportion between taxation, and representation" was framed in terms of states, not of individuals.  Mr. Taylor argued that the Constitution "is not providing for an equality of taxation among individuals, in proportion to their revenue, but for an equality of taxation between states in proportion to numbers."  "The sum of money necessary to be raised, and not the abstract notion of a tax is the thing to be apportioned."  The object of the direct taxation clause in the Constitution had been "to secure an equal contribution between the states in proportion to numbers; a thing not only possible, but attainable with precision."

Mr. Taylor published his arguments concerning the carriage tax to gain further support for the Constitutional form of taxation and to stir the people into awareness concerning this most vital subject, of which little was known by the people at the time.  Mr. Taylor then resigned as counsel for Mr. Hylton, advising that full argument before the Supreme Court should not be had in this case; that a Supreme Court decision without full argument would carry little weight, apparently believing that the Federalists would ultimately win the argument because of the power base that they had built up in government.  Alexander Hamilton was retained by government as counsel for defendant, which was the government, and the government also retained counsel for Mr. Hylton to argue his case before the Supreme Court.  Mr. Hylton tendered an agreement that the federal authorities would have complete control of the case, his object being the resolve of the Constitutional question involved, and not to delay payment of any tax owed.  Alexander Hamilton's arguments before the Supreme Court won the case for the government, being mostly in rejection of Mr. Taylor's arguments, as shown by the notes of Mr. Hamilton.  Justice Iredell wrote to his wife: "The day before yesterday Mr. Hamilton spoke in our Court, attended by the most crowded audience I ever saw there, both Houses of Congress being almost deserted on the occasion.  Though he was in very ill health, he spoke with astonishing ability, and in a most pleasing manner, and was listened to with the profoundest attention.  His speech lasted about three hours.  It was on the question whether the carriage tax, as laid, was a constitutional one.  In one part of it he affected me extremely.  Having occasion to observe, how proper a subject it was for taxation, since it was a mere article of luxury, which a man might either use, or not, as was convenient to him..."

Three of six justices of the Supreme Court heard argument in the case and decided for the government.  Mr. Taylor's "awful suspicion" was justified many times.  The Hylton case was cited by government often to justify a direct tax laid upon the States' inhabitants by federal government, and called an excise tax.

Mr. Choate turned the tide in his argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1895.  He argued that the tax that was being laid by government, in the Pollock case, was a direct tax, and must be apportioned according to the number of the population of the State.  The Supreme Court of the United States agreed, and, as noted in Senate Document No. 92-82, "...corrected a century of error."  John Taylor's arguments in the Hylton case had finally been vindicated after one hundred years.  If the tax, in the Hylton case, had been laid upon the manufacturer of the carriage before the carriage was transferred to the purchaser, Mr. Hylton in this case, then the tax would truly have been an excise tax upon the company that produced the carriages, and not a direct tax upon Mr. Hylton, an inhabitant of the State of Virginia.  The Federalists had performed a great disservice to the Constitution of the United States, and, at the same time, had usurped a greater power to the government, which eventually brought their downfall through the election of Thomas Jefferson into the office of President of the United States.

It has been explained that the Congress has no jurisdiction over the private affairs, personal possessions and individual enterprises of the people; also, that an income tax is not a tax upon the laboring man of the United States.  Nothing was to be taken from the wages of labor.  It was considered to be a tax upon accumulated wealth.  "It exacts tribute of accumulation and not of endeavor." 

The constitutional provision of direct taxation may be waived by the individual, and has been in many cases, just like the right to a jury trial may be waived; or the right to counsel in a criminal trial; or the right to remain silent.  The Victory Tax during World War II was one example.  An individual, rather than have the direct tax imposed upon the States, waived this Constitutional taxing provision and had the tax imposed directly upon himself, through a statement filed with the employer, and signed under the penalties of perjury.  On the date 19 August 1942, Milton Friedman, an economist with the Treasury Department, and Beardsley Ruml, from R. H. Macy Co., Inc., New York, spoke before a subcommittee of the Committee On Finance of the United States Senate.  Mr. Ruml was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, and the author of a withholding tax plan.  Mr. Friedman agreed that since an inflation problem was inevitable and upcoming, due to the expansion of the economy to accommodate the war effort, it was important that the withholding tax be implemented to withdraw money from the marketplace to ease the inflation problem.  Workers would not have this money to spend, and it would be sent back to the Treasury Department.  Chapter 619 of the Public Laws of the 77th Congress, Second Session, dated 21 October 1942:

SUBCHAPTER D  ---  VICTORY TAX ON INDIVIDUALS

PART 1  ---  RATE AND COMPUTATION OF TAX

SEC. 450.    IMPOSITION OF TAX

There shall be levied, collected, and paid for each taxable year beginning after December 31, 1942, a victory tax of 5 per centum upon the victory tax net income of every individual (other than a nonresident alien subject to the tax imposed by section 211 (a)).

The victory tax net income was explained to be the gross income for such year, not including gain from sale or exchange of capital assets, or interest allowed as a credit against net income, or amounts received as compensation for injury or sickness, and minus some listed deductions.  Section 454 was the refund of tax section:

SEC. 454.   POST WAR CREDIT OR REFUND OF VICTORY TAX

(a)  Allowance of Credit. ---  As soon as practicable after date of cessation of hostilities in the present war (as defined in section 475 (b)), the following amount of the victory tax paid for each taxable year beginning after December 31, 1942, shall be credited against any income tax or installment thereof then due from the taxpayer, and any balance shall be refunded immediately to the taxpayer

The legislation continues, stating the amount of refund for single persons, married persons, and heads of families.  Section 465, in Part II of the legislation, is the "Collection of Tax at Source on Wages" section.  The Americans, in an effort to contribute toward the ending of hostilities, waived their Constitutional right to have the direct tax laid upon the States and accepted this direct tax upon themselves.  This legislation was repealed by the 78th Congress, Second Session, on 29 May 1944 by the Public Laws -- Chapter 210, Section 6. REPEAL OF VICTORY TAX.  Although the Victory Tax had been repealed, government found the Americans so easily waiving their Constitutional rights, that it continued the withholding tax plan.  The "income tax" was touted as a tax that "will not touch a hair upon the head of a laboring man in the United States."  The laboring man was already taxed upon his tools, his clothes, his food, and other necessities of life.  The "income tax" was legislated to lighten the burden of taxation, for the operation of government, on the laboring people of the United States, and to have accumulated wealth pay its "fair share", as shown in the Congressional Record.  Those who do not wish to waive their rights, and give the government this jurisdiction over them, are considered to be "unpatriotic", and not willing to "pay their fair share".  He is told that not only must he pay a tax "upon his tools, his clothes, his food, and other necessities of life", but he must also pay a tax that was enacted to "lighten the burden of taxation" upon him, and, therefore, renouncing his status as natural person, and to take on the mantle of artificial person. 

Government was granted adequate taxing powers, as previously shown, without this personal jurisdiction over the Americans.  This personal jurisdiction is the most formidable opportunity for control of the life of the individual by government agencies, and has been demonstrated in many instances, an example being the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), or Social Security tax.  Title VIII of the Social Security Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 636 (1935), declared an excise tax on the employer.  The employer is required to pay the complete tax.  The Act then "authorized" the employer to collect half from the employee.  The employee, making application for employment, signs a waiver authorizing that the amount be deducted from his pay.  It was declared, by the Supreme Court of the United States: 

An employer is liable for payment of the employee's share of FICA whether or not he withholds the required amount of the employee's contribution. — US v Lee  455 US 252, 254 (1982)  note 1 

Congressman Jim Slattery (D., Kansas), member of the House Committee on Banking, Finance, & Urban Affairs, and former member of the Budget Committee, stated, on the program It's Your Business, on the date 5 May 1991: "It's time to be honest about the Social Security fraud too; and that's something, from a generational standpoint, is the biggest intergenerational fraud ever perpetrated on one generation of Americans by another." 

Many complain of the government's interference into their lives, yet continue to give the government jurisdiction over them through the signing of statements, sworn under the penalties of perjury.   It has also been explained that wealth always finds a way to shift the burden of its own taxation to the working people, and those who are less knowledgeable concerning the tax system.  The Sixteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States was ratified by the States under the premise that the income tax was a tax upon wealth and not a tax upon the workingman.  In the Brushaber case it was shown that this amendment was a clarification of this type of tax; that it was an excise tax, and not a new type of tax not recognized by the Constitution.  In Southern Pacific Co. v Lowe, the governments' contention, that everything that comes in is income, was rejected by the court.  Government still makes this contention, however frivolous and erroneous it is.  Naturally, by this contention, the tax base is broadened; but, as stated in Eisner v Macomber, "Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised."  The Congress cannot expand, by legislation, or definition, the terms used in the Constitution to mean something that was foreign to the thinking of the framers of that instrument; nor can the Congress alter the definition of terms of an amendment of the Constitution by legislation to mean something different from what was intended by the amendment itself.  This power, not being granted to the Congress, cannot be delegated to any agency by the Congress, nor to any private organization.  It is also shown that the meaning of the term "income", in truth and substance, is a gain or profit derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.  Those corporations using labor to produce a product derive a profit from such labor; the labor is bought at one price and sold at a higher price, and the corporation derives an income therefrom.  Those corporations using capital for investment derive an income from that particular source.  It was explained in the Brushaber case, and reiterated in Stanton v Baltic Mining Co., that the income tax is an excise tax, the Sixteenth Amendment bestowing no new power of taxation upon the Congress of the United States.  The Court has stated that the Sixteenth Amendment was unnecessary.  The words used in the Sixteenth Amendment, "taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived" are words used in the excise tax statutes that the Congress had assembled in the past, the tax not actually being upon the income, but upon the act of doing business, the income being the measurement used for calculating the amount of the tax.  It is recorded in the Congressional Record, along with a history of the "income tax": "The income tax is, therefore, not a tax on income as such.  It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges which is measured by reference to the income which they produce.  The income is not the subject of the tax: it is the basis for determining the amount of tax."  — Congressional Record   House of Representatives   27 March 1943  pg 2579

The exchange of labor and other services for money or other forms of property is a vested right, not a privilege.  This right was not granted by the Constitution, nor is it granted by governments.  It existed as a vested natural right long before governments existed, and was protected under the common law.  The Constitution of the United States guaranteed a contractual society to the inhabitants of the States.  The old status society, or feudal system, as known in Europe, was eliminated by the words, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States."  The States were also denied the power to grant Titles of Nobility.  The terms used in the law, such as master-servant, employer-employee, are only terms designating a relationship, not status, and have no connotation to actual servant of a master.  The term "benefit" is also misconstrued.  A benefit, as defined, is something given by another, such as a "bonus", not expected by the individual.  The term "benefit", as used in a contract, is in error.  Something that is contracted is not a benefit.  It is a contractual obligation.

Each individual is guaranteed standing, in the eyes of the law, equal to that of every other citizen, or organization.  Chief Justice Rugg, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, stated: "The right to make contracts to earn money by labor is at least as essential to the laborer as is any property right to other members of society.  If as much protection is not given by the laws to this property, which often may be the owner's only substantial asset, as is given other kinds of property, the laborer stands on a plane inferior to that of other property owners.  Absolute equality before the law is a fundamental principle of our own Constitution.  To the extent that the laborer is not given the same security to his property by the law that is granted to the landowner or capitalist, to that extent discrimination is exercised against him." — John Bogni v Giovanni Perotti   112 N.E. 853 (1916)

It was also stated, in this case, that legislation which enhances the labor property is found to be constitutional, while those laws which tend to make this property inferior are not, whether for the individual alone, or in his association with others.  Mr. Justice Pitney, delivering the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, and quoting from the famous British economist Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations, stated: "The principle is fundamental and vital.  Included in the right of personal liberty and right of private property - partaking of the nature of each - is the right to make contracts for the acquisition of property.  Chief among such contracts is that of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged for money or other forms of property.  If this right be struck down or arbitrarily interfered with, there is a substantial impairment of liberty in the long-established constitutional sense.  The right is as essential to the laborer as to the capitalist, to the poor as to the rich; for the vast majority of persons have no other honest way to begin to acquire property, save by working for money.  ...The right to follow any lawful vocation and to make contracts is as completely within the protection of the Constitution as the right to hold property free from unwarranted seizure, or the liberty to go when and where one will.  One of the ways of obtaining property is by contract.  The right, therefore, to contract cannot be infringed by the legislature without violating the letter and spirit of the Constitution.  Every citizen is protected in his right to work where and for whom he will." — T. B. Coppage v State of Kansas   236 US 1, 14, 23 (1914)

In the Opinion of the Justices of the State of Massachusetts, (196 Mass. 603, 625), the mere exercise of a natural right in the performance of labor, or in making an ordinary, simple contract, is not a commodity which would support the imposition of an excise tax.  Justice Prewitt, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, explained: "It cannot be denied that the Legislature can name any privilege a taxable privilege and tax it by means other than an income tax, but the Legislature cannot name something to be a taxable privilege unless it is first a privilege.  ...Since the right to receive income or earnings is a right belonging to every person, this right cannot be taxed as privilege." — Jack Cole Company v MacFarland   337 Southwestern Second 453 (1960)

The guarantee of the preservation of a contractual society is declared in the United States Constitution: "No State shall...pass any...Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts,..." — Article 1 § 10   U.S. Constitution

The States were specifically denied the power to impair the obligation of contracts, and the Congress was not granted the power to impair these obligations, and, therefore, cannot delegate this power to any agency, or business.  Article Ten of the Bill of Rights explains the hierarchical relationship between the people, the State, and the federal government quite clearly: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." — Article 10    Bill of Rights

This confirms the fact that the people organized the States, and the States organized, into a corporation, the federal government, with the Constitution of the United States being the Charter of Incorporation.  To lay a tax upon a right would be an infringement of that right, for the right could then be taxed out of existence.  There is a legal distinction between a natural person and an artificial person, as recognized in the second edition of Blacks Law Dictionary:

Artificial persons.  Such as are created and devised by law for the purpose of society and government, called "corporations" or "bodies politic."

Natural persons.  Such as are formed by nature, as distinguished from artificial persons, or corporations.

There is a distinct difference between a right and a privilege, as there is between an individual and a corporation.  The Supreme Court of the United States has explained: "The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen.  He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way.  His power to contract is unlimited.  He owes no duty to the State or to his neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so far as it may tend to criminate him.  He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property.  His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution.  Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under warrant of the law.  He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights.  ...Upon the other hand, the corporation is a creature of the State.  It is presumed to be incorporated for the benefit of the public.  It receives certain special privileges and franchises, and holds them subject to the laws of the State and the limitations of its charter.  Its powers are limited by law.  It can make no contract not authorized by its charter.  Its rights to act as a corporation are only preserved to it so long as it obeys the laws of its creation." — Hale v Henkel   201 US 43, 74 (1905) 

In the case of Boyd v US, an order was issued by government to produce certain papers for examination, or the allegations of government would be admitted as confessed.  Justice Bradley delivered the opinion of the Court, noting the argument of government that the order did not authorize a search and seizure, but ordered that the papers be produced by defendant.  Justice Bradley declared: "That is so; but it declares that if he does not produce them, the allegations which it is affirmed they will prove shall be taken as confessed.  This is tantamount to compelling their production; ...It is true that certain aggravating incidents of actual search and seizure, such as forcible entry into a man's house and searching amongst his papers, are wanting, and to this extent the proceeding under the act of 1874 is a mitigation of that which was authorized by the former acts; but it accomplishes the substantial object of those acts in forcing from a party evidence against himself.  It is our opinion, therefore, that a compulsory production of a man's private papers to establish a criminal charge against him, or to forfeit his property, is within the scope of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in all cases in which a search and seizure would be; because it is a material ingredient, and effects the sole object and purpose of search and seizure."

Justice Bradley recalled the case of John Wilkes of England, who was outraged by the obnoxious seizures of his papers and effects, and for this outrage, "he sued the perpetrators and obtained a verdict of £1000 against Wood, one of the party who made the search, and £4000 against Lord Halifax, the Secretary of State who issued the warrant."  Further: "The case, however, which will always be celebrated as being the occasion of Lord Camden's memorable discussion of the subject, was that of Entick v. Carrington and Three Other King's Messengers, reported at length in 19 Howell's State Trials, 1029.  The action was trespass for entering the plaintiff's dwelling-house in November, 1762, and breaking open his desks, boxes, &c., and searching and examining his papers.  The jury rendered a special verdict, and the case was twice solemnly argued at the bar.  Lord Camden pronounced the judgment of the court in Michaelmas Term, 1765, and the law as expounded by him has been regarded as settled from that time to this, and his great judgment on that occasion is considered as one of the landmarks of English liberty.  It was welcomed and applauded by the lovers of liberty in the colonies as well as in the mother country.  It is regarded as one of the permanent monuments of the British Constitution, and is quoted as such by the English authorities on that subject down to the present time."

Justice Bradley reviewed the history that Lord Camden expounded, in which he arrived at the conclusion that "upon the whole we are all of opinion, that the warrant to seize and carry away the party's papers in the case of a seditious libel, is illegal and void."  Justice Bradley continued the opinion in the case of Boyd v US: "The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security.  They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employes of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life.  It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offence; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property...  Breaking into a house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own testimony or of his private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of crime or to forfeit his goods, is within the condemnation of that judgment."

The individual has no obligation to report his personal business to any government; and any law which would require him to do so is in direct conflict with Article Four of the Bill of Rights, which declares the natural law that an individual shall be secure in his papers and effects.  The individual can, however, waive his right of privacy and tell everyone every thing that he knows.  However, this being an individual right, it is asserted on an individual basis; and because some individuals assert the right to waive their right to privacy doesn't mean that everyone must.  Government has conspired to blur the distinction between artificial and natural persons and lumps all into one category so that the rights of the individual will not be recognized.  Article Four of the Bill of Rights states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." — Article Four   Bill of Rights

This Article has a unique history all its own: "Few provisions of the Bill of Rights grew so directly out of the experience of the colonials as the Fourth Amendment did, embodying as it did the protection against the utilization of the "writs of assistance."" — The Constitution of the United States of America   Analysis and Interpretation   Senate Document 92-82   92nd Congress  2nd Session   pg 1041

Writs of Assistance were authorized under the British Townshend Act, which was part of a revenue law, and granted power to the superior courts of the colonies to issue orders empowering customs officers to enter any house, warehouse, shop, cellar, or other place in the British colonies or plantations in America to search for and seize what the British considered to be prohibited smuggled goods.  These writs were general in nature and commanded all subjects to assist.  The colonists had developed their own trade with other countries and the British were attempting to stifle this trade so that the Americans would use only British goods, which were taxed by the British Parliament.  This so inflamed the Americans that these writs became one of the grievances which culminated in the Revolution.  This type of writ is used by the United States Treasury Department today, but instead of being issued by a court, as were the notorious Writs of Assistance, the Treasury Department issues their own "writs".  These "writs" are then used to seek out and seize property of the inhabitants of the States, and the local sheriff is sought out to assist.  In many cases, a direct tax is laid upon an inhabitant, and when the inhabitant brings issue that the Congress was never granted the power to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States, the "writs" are issued, by the Treasury Department, to seize property, bank accounts, wages, and salaries, as a means of preventing the individual, through economic coercion, from engaging in further litigation.  Considering the history of these infamous "writs", it would be tantamount to treason for a State court, or sheriff, to sanction such a process; and for an American lawyer to defend it.  We have come full circle; back into some of the very reasons why a revolution was fought in this country in the first place.

The Congress was granted the power to lay duties on goods imported into this country to adjust the price of goods from the lesser developed countries, with smaller economies, to the value of our own manufactured goods.  It is well known in this country that the Americans have a well advanced economic system.  Free Trade is described in the dictionaries as: "Trade or commerce free from restrictions, and in particular from custom duties levied on foreign commodities."  The advanced economy that we have cannot compete with the economy of a lesser developed country on a free trade basis, and the Americans would have to regress fifty or one-hundred years to do so.  This is unacceptable to an aggressive and progressive people who, at one time, had made America the wealthiest and most productive society in the world.  The Congress of the United States, and State Legislatures, have enacted laws regulating the discharges of manufacturing plants into the environment to control pollution.  There are health and safety laws enacted for the protection of individuals in the workplaces of America.  Some individuals have contracted with their employers a retirement program, and health insurance for themselves and their families.  Compensations for labor are, in many cases, commensurate with the liberties of a free people.  The Americans are now witnessing the results of "free trade" as our manufacturers are closing down manufacturing facilities in this country and are manufacturing goods in the lesser developed countries, escaping pollution and safety requirements, and contract stipulations, shipping goods back into this country with very little duties laid upon them.  Adam Smith, a British economist who has been quoted by American statesmen, and Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, wrote, in his book Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, "If the free importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the home manufactures would probably suffer, and some of them, perhaps, go to ruin altogether...".  He noted that "two great engines for enriching the country, therefore, were restraints upon importation, and encouragements to exportation."  Mr. Smith had studied under Professor Francis Hutcheson, who had written, in his book System of Moral Philosophy, in the chapter Of the Nature of Civil Laws and their Execution: "Foreign materials should be imported and even premiums given, when necessary, that all our own hands may be employed; and then, by exporting them again manufactured, we may obtain from abroad the price of our labours.  Foreign manufactures and products ready for consumption should be made dear to the consumer by high duties, if we cannot altogether prohibit the consumption; ...". 

Congress has a mandate, under the Constitution of the United States, to promote the general welfare of all the States.  A policy of "balanced trade", rather than "free trade", should be implemented so that our manufactures may become strong again, and our country can become the economic giant that it once was. 

Previously noted was the fact that the congress of the United States was never granted the power to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States; that is, the natural persons inhabiting the States.  The congress of the United States has no jurisdiction over the States' inhabitants.  Excise taxes may be laid upon the privileges that are exercised by artificial persons.  A license granted by a government to exercise such a privilege would be the evidence of the privilege that is exercised, and also the evidence by which government could lawfully lay an excise tax upon such privilege.  Concerning the income tax, it has been declared by the Supreme Court of the United States that the tax is upon the exercise of privileges, the income being the measurement for the application of the tax. Although it is called an income tax, and stated that the tax is upon incomes, it is much like the Michigan sales tax, or the sales tax of any other State.  The sales tax is not a tax upon sales, but upon the act of doing business.  In the case of Miles Laboratories v Simon (33 Federal Supplement 962) the Michigan sales tax was declared by the court to be a tax upon the privilege of doing business at retail, the amount of the sales being a measurement for the tax to be imposed.  The tax was not imposed upon the consumer by the Michigan Sales Tax Act.  The consumer is not liable for the Michigan sales tax; the business is the liable party.  Some business' have a flat price for their goods.  What you see on the price tag is what you pay at the checkout counter.  The taxes are already included in the price as a "cost of doing business".  Some business' add a sales tax at the checkout counter.

Black's Law Dictionary, second edition, declares a difference between the economic term "income", and the term "income" as used in the income tax, the economic term meaning the same as a revenue, or that which comes in, while the term used in the income tax means yearly profits.  The Internal Revenue Service explained in their publication #525 (Rev. Nov. 81) that wages and salaries are sources, and not the income: "Wages and salaries are the main source of income for most people."  Items listed, in the Revenue Acts of 1926, shown in the Internal Revenue Laws, 1927, Sec. 213, pg 550, 551, Gross Income Defined, as sources, are now listed as items of income.

Chief Judge Sobeloff, from the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, and Chief Judge Shackelford Miller, Jr., United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, made the same "erroneous assumption" concerning the Sixteenth Amendment that the government makes: "...and it [Congress] may impose a capitation or direct tax only if apportioned among the states according to population.  This last restriction, the only one pertinent to the present case, has been limited in scope by the Sixteenth Amendment which permits taxes "on incomes, from whatever source derived" without regard to the apportionment requirement." — William Simmons v US    308 F2 160, 166 (1962)

"This constitutional limitation upon direct taxation was modified by the Sixteenth Amendment insofar as taxation of income was concerned, but the amendment was restricted to income, leaving in effect the limitation upon direct taxation of principal." — Ard E. Richardson, Jr.  v  US   294 F2 593, 596 (1961)

There seems to be no end to the conspiracy by government to deprive the inhabitants of the States of their property and their rights.  Circuit Judge Lay, from the Eighth Circuit, Federal Court of Appeals, declared in his opinion that the Brushaber case clearly establishes that the income tax is a direct tax, declaring that: "...the purpose of the Sixteenth Amendment was to take the income tax "out of the class of excises, duties and imposts and place it in the class of direct taxes"." — US v Francisco  614 F2 617, 619 (1980)

The segment which Judge Lay had quoted from the Brushaber decision was taken out of context from a sentence which clearly states that the Sixteenth Amendment was drafted to insure that the "income tax" would not be removed from the category of excise taxes.  It is a maxim of law that: "Whatever is subject to the authority of a judge is not subject to innovation." — Coke, 4th Inst. 66;   Judge John Bouvier's Law Dictionary 1870 Vol. 2  pg 152

"It is the duty of a judge to declare the law, not to enact it."  — Lofft, 42;   Judge John Bouvier's Law Dictionary 1870 Vol. 2  pg 133

It would appear that the Judges were attempting to overrule the Supreme Court of the United States, and amend the Constitution of the United States; a power not granted to a federal judge, nor the judiciary, nor to any of the other branches of government.  The attempt was to declare that the Sixteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States created a brand new type of tax, which, according to the Supreme Court of the United States, it did not.  As stated in the Congressional Record, and the Supreme Court records, the income tax is not a tax upon the income, but upon the act of doing business, the income being the measurement used for the amount of the tax to be assessed, with various exemptions and deductions granted by the Congress.

In the case of Bowers, Collector of Internal Revenue v Kerbaugh Empire Company 271 U.S. 170 (1926), Justice Butler wrote, in the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States: "The Sixteenth Amendment declares that Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes on income, 'from whatever source derived' without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. It was not the purpose or effect of that amendment to bring any new subject within the taxing power. Congress already had power to tax all incomes. But taxes on incomes from some sources had been held to be 'direct taxes' within the meaning of the constitutional requirement as to apportionment. Art. 1, 2, cl. 3, 9, cl. 4; Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601 , 15 S. Ct. 912. The Amendment relieved from that requirement and obliterated the distinction in that respect between taxes on income that are direct taxes and those that are not, and so put on the same basis all incomes 'from whatever source derived.' Brushaber v. Union Pac. R. R., 240 U.S. 1, 17"

That wasn't what was written in Brushaber at all.  Mr. Brushaber was a stockholder in the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and he filed the lawsuit to try to stop the company from paying the new "income tax" because if they did his dividends would be reduced.

The Solicitor General for the government, in an amicus curiae brief, had made the argument: "The Sixteenth Amendment removed the restriction of apportionment as to such income taxes as before were subject thereto." The Court, in their opinion, in which there was no dissent, and noting this "confusion", declared this to be an "erroneous assumption" on the part of the government, and "wholly without foundation". The Court declared that "it was settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation"; and that the amendment simply prohibited the income tax from being taken from the category of indirect taxation, and being placed into the category of a direct tax.

It was also explained that the Congress of the United States had no intention of destroying the two great classes of taxation by the wording of the Sixteenth Amendment, but placed an income tax into the category of taxation in which it inherently belonged; the indirect class, or excise, and because the tax is not apportioned, nor subject to the census or enumeration, it is an excise tax, a tax upon the exercise of privileges, such taxes not being subject to the condition of apportionment to the States.

Will the subterfuge and deceit never end...

In the Library of the University of Michigan is an original edition of a book entitled An Essay on the Trial by Jury.  It was written by Lysander Spooner, and the first edition was published in Boston in 1852.  It is a critique of the Magna Carta, as it pertains to the rights and duties of a jury in the determination of the rights of the inhabitants of the various districts of England, and explains the history of the jury trial, and why it became necessary to have such a doctrine to protect the rights of the people from "stealthy encroachments" of government.  The essay begins by explaining: "For more than six hundred years - that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 - there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.  Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead of juries being a "palladium of liberty" - a barrier against the tyranny and oppression of the government - they are really mere tools in its hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it may desire to have executed.  But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.  That is, it can dictate what evidence is admissible, and what inadmissible, and also what force or weight is to be given to the evidence admitted.  And if the government can thus dictate to a jury the laws of evidence, it can not only make it necessary for them to convict on a partial exhibition of the evidence rightfully pertaining to the case, but it can even require them to convict on any evidence whatever that it pleases to offer them."

He summed up this introduction by stating: ""The trial by jury," then, is a "trial by the country" - that is, by the people - as distinguished from a trial by the government."

And further: "The object of this trial "by the country," or by the people, in preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every species of oppression by the government.  In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or "the country," judge of and determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the government's judging of and determining its own powers over the people.  How is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government, if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?  Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course.  There is no other - or at least no more accurate - definition of a despotism than this."

Mr. Spooner explained that the jury is to judge whether or not the laws have been properly expounded to them by the judge of the court; for if the law must be accepted by the jury as expounded to them by the judiciary, the judiciary "can dictate to them the law itself, and such laws as they please".  He explained that "Unless they judge on this point, the people are liable to have their liberties taken from them by brute force, without any law at all."  He also explained that the jury must determine the weight of evidence that would tend to vindicate the accused, and stated that "It is manifest, therefore, that the jury must judge of and try the whole case, and every part and parcel of the case, free of any dictation or authority on the part of the government."  He summed this up by concluding: "The question, then, between trial by jury, as thus described, and trial by the government, is simply a question between liberty and despotism.  The authority to judge what are the powers of the government, and what the liberties of the people, must necessarily be vested in one or the other of the parties themselves - the government, or the people; because there is no third party to whom it can be entrusted.  If the authority be vested in the government, the government is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with."

He explained that, historically, there was no distinction between the civil and criminal courts as to the rights or powers of juries.  The jury was to judge of the law and the facts in civil and in criminal cases; else the property of an individual may also be put in jeopardy by government.  He stated that Magna Carta had a provision that obviously originated from the corruption of the king's judges; the provision that four knights, chosen by the people of the county, would sit with the king's judge at the trial.  He stated that "The reason for this provision undoubtedly was, that the corruption and subserviency of the king's judges were so well known, that the people would not even trust them to sit alone in a jury trial of any considerable importance."  He declared: "...in a government formed by voluntary association, or on the theory of voluntary association, and voluntary support, (as all the North American governments are,) no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any individual, except it be such as all the members of the association agree that it may enforce.  To enforce any other law, to the extent of taking a man's goods, rights, or person, would be making some of the parties to the association accomplices in what they regard as acts of injustice.  It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.  These are things which no legitimate system or theory of government can require of any of the parties to it.  The mode adopted, by the trial by jury, for ascertaining whether all the parties to the government do approve of a particular law, is to take twelve men at random from the whole people, and accept their unanimous decision as representing the opinions of the whole.  Even this mode is not theoretically accurate; for theoretical accuracy would require that every man, who was a party to the government, should individually give his consent to the enforcement of every law in every separate case.  But such a thing would be impossible in practice.  The consent of twelve men is therefore taken instead; with the privilege of appeal, and (in case of error found by the appeal court) a new trial, to guard against possible mistakes.  This system, it is assumed, will ascertain the sense of the whole people - "the country" - with sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes, and with as much accuracy as is practicable without too great inconvenience and expense."

Mr. Spooner pointed out that the constitutions of New Hampshire and Tennessee declare that "The doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."  Continuing: "The legal effect of these constitutional recognitions of the right of individuals to defend their property, liberties, and lives, against the government, is to legalize resistance to all injustice and oppression, of every name and nature whatsoever, on the part of the government.  But for this right of resistance, on the part of the people, all governments would become tyrannical to a degree of which few people are aware.  Constitutions are utterly worthless to restrain the tyranny of governments, unless it be understood that the people will, by force, compel the government to keep within the constitutional limits.  Practically speaking, no government knows any limits to its power, except the endurance of the people.  But that the people are stronger than the government, and will resist in extreme cases, our governments would be little or nothing else than organized systems of plunder and oppression."

Alexander Hamilton noted, in the Federalist #28: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."

This is why we have Article Two of the Bill of Rights.  Many individuals believe that government was created to protect their rights.  During a session of the Congress, while assembling a Bill of Rights, a phrase that was included in one of the articles was attacked by Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a Representative from the State of Massachusetts, as recorded in The Congressional Register, 14 August 1789: "...we have it here "government being intended for the benefit of the people," this holds up an idea that all the governments of the earth are intended for the benefit of the people: Now, I am so far from being of this opinion, that I don't believe that one out of fifty is intended for any such purpose.  I believe the establishment of most governments was to gratify the ambition of an individual, who by fraud, force, or accident, had made himself master of the people.  If we contemplate the history of nations, ancient or modern, we shall find they originated either in fraud or force, or both; if this is demonstrable, how can we pretend to say that governments are intended for the benefit of those who are most oppressed by them.  This maxim does not appear to me to be strictly true in fact, therefore I think we ought not to insert it in the constitution."

It was not.

In the case of Evans v Gore, Judge Evans, a United States District Court Judge, sued the collector of internal revenue for recovery of a tax on the basis of his salary being diminished, a Constitutional issue based on Article 3 § 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that federal judges shall "receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."  In the opinion of the court, which upheld judge Evans' claim, Alexander Hamilton, in his writings in the Federalist papers, was quoted: "The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution."  "Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing."  "In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.."  Chief Justice Marshall was quoted: "I have always thought, from my earliest youth till now, that the greatest scourge an angry Heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people, was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent Judiciary."  President Wilson was quoted: "It is also necessary that there should be a judiciary endowed with substantial and independent powers and secure against all corrupting or perverting influences; secure, also, against the arbitrary authority of the administrative heads of the government."  A tax on the salary of federal judges had been at issue in the courts before, in 1862, and had been overturned, as it was here.  Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote of the 1862 statute that subjected the salaries of all civil officers of the United States to an income tax of three percent: "The Judiciary is one of the three great departments of the government, created and established by the Constitution.  Its duties and powers are specifically set forth, and are of a character that requires it to be perfectly independent of the two other departments, and in order to place it beyond the reach and above even the suspicion of any such influence, the power to reduce their compensation is expressly withheld from Congress, and excepted from their powers of legislation."  The collection of the tax proceeded, and Chief Justice Taney's remarks were put upon the record as objecting to the tax.  In 1869 the Secretary of the Treasury referred the question to the United States Attorney General, who agreed with Justice Taney, and likewise with the compensation of the President of the United States.  Our history shows that these three branches of government were to be free and independent of each other; with no influence of any kind of one upon the other.

The federal government would wish to continue the status relationship, and to be able to hold funds for highway improvements, and etc., as a tool to control the enactment of State laws inflicting limits and regulations upon the States inhabitants, and, thereby, regressing this country to the feudal master-servant status that existed over two-hundred years ago.  The status "taxpayer", which government so loosely brands individuals, is an indication of this feudal society, and displays the utter contempt that government has for the "subject".  Compounding the injury, government declares itself to be sovereign, and immune from any action.  It is predictable that this would change should the federal government conform to the provisions of the Constitution and seek the direct taxes from the States instead of from the States inhabitants.  The people can make it happen.

Mr. Justice Bradley, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared: "It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure.  This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed.  A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance.  It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon.  Their motto should be obsta principiis." — Edward A. & George H. Boyd v United States   116 US 616, 635 (1886)

WHERE RIGHTS SECURED BY THE CONSTITUTION ARE INVOLVED, THERE CAN BE NO RULE MAKING OR LEGISLATION WHICH WOULD ABROGATE THEM. — Ernesto A. Miranda v State of Arizona    384 US 436, 491 (1966)

In the hearing of all the people Jesus said to his disciples: "Beware of the doctors of the law who love to walk up and down in long robes, and have a great liking for respectful greeting in the street, the chief seats in our synagogues, and places of honour at feasts.  These are the men who eat up the property of widows, while they say long prayers for appearances sake; and they will receive the severest sentence." — Luke 20 v 45   The Bible

"If a man sees a wrong, and does nothing, can he then call himself a man?" — kwai chang caine