I watched a documentary last night called America: Freedom to Fascism, supposedly about the formation of the Federal Reserve. The documentary was not that great, as it briefly started on the formation of the federal reserve, then spent most of the time on whether or not income tax is actually legal, then had a bunch of random other stuff such as a national ID card, RFID, and one or two others. But it did make me think more about the Supreme Court, and so I read up a little on the decisions referenced in the documentary. And so, that, in combination with the memory of Sarah Palin not being able to name any other Supreme Court decisions outside of Roe v. Wade and knowing I'm not much better, I propose that we find an old Supreme Court decision once a week to read up on, so we can at least get a primer on old decisions. If you guys don't think this is a worthwhile posting, just let me know. But in addition to this, I've got another related one I'd like to do next week. After that, we'll rotate or something. Up first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollock_v._Farmers%27_Loan_%26_Trust_Co.
Case: Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
Chief Justice: Melville Fuller
Summary of the case: Pollock (a shareholder) sued Farmers' Loan & Trust Company because they automatically paid an income tax for shareholders & reported the shareholders' names on whose behalf they were acting (ostensibly so the people wouldn't be taxed twice). The basis for the lawsuit was that the tax was a direct tax, which under the Constitution must be apportioned amongst the states.
Results: The 16th Amendment was passed in 1909, and ratified by the requisite number of states in 1913. It reads:
"The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Interesting Points:Two points from dissenting justices-
Justices
John Marshall Harlan, Jackson, White and Brown dissented from the majority opinion.
Justice White argued:
It is, I submit, greatly to be deplored that after more than 100 years of our national existence, after the government has withstood the strain of foreign wars and the dread ordeal of civil strife, and its people have become united and powerful, this court should consider itself compelled to go back to a long repudiated and rejected theory of the constitution, by which the government is deprived of an inherent attribute of its being—a necessary power of taxation. [158 U.S. 638]
In his dissent, Justice Brown wrote:
The decision involves nothing less than the surrender of the taxing power to the moneyed class...Even the spectre of
socialism is conjured up to frighten Congress from laying taxes upon the people in proportion to their ability to pay them.
[2]As for Justice White, what is the argument for saying that a theory of the constitution is long repudiated and rejected? Unless it's been overruled by an amendment, must that not be the utmost decider of what's legal or not?
As for Justice Brown, it's interesting to see that even in the late 1800's, people have been using socialism as a scare tactic to advance their own agendas.
Further Questions:I'm still trying to get a grasp on what apportionment really meant. It seems like the definition I've seen implies that all taxes must be spent equally amongst the states, according to population. However, the case argued by Pollock seems to be that all taxes must be taken equally from the states, according to population. If this is the case, would the nation have been restricted to taxing per capita based on the state with the lowest per capita income? Or if one state earns more per capita than another, would the state have to find other ways to increase the taxes on the lesser state (possibly just doing a higher percentage of income, etc).
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