LETTERS: 16TH AMENDMENT

To the editor:

In 1819 Chief Justice Marshall wrote that the "power to tax involves the power to destroy.'In 1861 President Lincoln signed into law the first nationwide income tax. Only citizens with incomes above $800 a year were subject to a 3 percent annual tax. He did this to fund the war.

In 1864 a floor amendment in Congress raised the maximum federal income tax to 10 percent of incomes over $10,000 per year as well as raising the then-current 3 percent of over $800 a year to 5 percent of incomes above $600 per year. Rep. Justin Morrill led an obviously futile fight against the increase. (Does this picture look familiar?) This first income tax was repealed in 1870.

In August 1894 President Cleveland allowed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act to become law without his signature. This act included an income tax to balance revenue losses the government had suffered. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)In May 1895 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the tax on income to be in violation of the direct-tax clause of Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled that the income tax was unconstitutional. A comment at that time by the president of the Fourth National Bank, J. Edwards Simmons, was that the decision "demonstrates that the Communistic and Populistic element cannot override the Constitution."In 1913, 38 states approved the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows Congress to "lay and collect taxes on income from whatever source derived." This amendment was necessitated by the above 1895 Supreme Court decision. In 1913 the income tax became law and constitutional.

Why would the American populous, who so angrily denounced the income tax during the Civil War and also in 1895 when $80,000 of collected tax had to be returned with the Supreme Court decision, ratify the 16th Amendment? Lets look at the moving House floor speech given by one of the leading sponsors of the income-tax bill, Rep. Champ Clark from, of all places, Missouri. When the bill was introduced it was sold to the American people as something that would affect only the rich. The bill contained a $5,000 exemption, meaning that anyone earning more than that amount would pay the flat tax. Adjusted for inflation, the $5,000 in 1913 has a value of $82,000 today. Here is an excerpt from that speech using the $82,000 figure."I do not believe that the $82,000 exemption is too much. ... I certainly would increase it rather than diminish it, and for this reason: $82,000 is not an unreasonable amount for a man to support his family on and to educate his children; $99,000 is not an unreasonable amount; $115,000 would not be an unreasonable amount. But I say that when a mans net income rises above $1.65 million a year it does not make a difference to him, practically, whether you take 1 percent ... or 25 percent."You formulate your own questions in regard to Mr. Campbell's intention to "take any amount of the millionaire's income or for that matter anyone's. How about yours.

Just imagine if Mr. Steve Forbes, Republican presidential candidate, would use that persuasive speech with today's adjusted-for-inflation value. Then when Mr. Forbes campaigned for his second term, we as a more prosperous and freer American people could demand that he push to repeal the 16th amendment.

DAVID GONCHER

Cape Girardeau