Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-07
INCOME TAX REHEARING.l
Continued From First Page.)


 further upon the tax on state and municipal bonds than had been set forth in the original argument. The ruling of the court as to the subject of state and municipal bonds, MT. Whitney said, did not in the opinion of the governments counsel affect the other points involved as to the ruling upon the exemption Of incomes from receipts from the opera tions of law. Their position, he said, was somewhat different. They believed that on that point they would be able to appeal to every justice upon like grounds when case is sent back to court for rehearing, when new evidence has been discovered
 In the original hearing the government ment had not felt it necessary to pre- sent any of the historical evidence re- lating to the direct taxes, but had been content, inaSmuch as the complafnants had not in bills nor in their briefs in- dicated their intention of contesting the point, to rest upon the adjudication of the court in previous cases down to and including the Springer case. Now that the government was about to present the historical evidence MT. Whitney claimed that it would present to the court an entirely new view of the ques- tion of direct taxes, as much so as if the case was now to be heard anew with testimony adduced which was not under consideration by the court i'll the first instance. And upon that he confidently appealed to and challenged the attention of every justice. This argument, he said, would leave scarcely a loop hole for the entrance of the ones proposed by the opponents of the law.
 Proceeding then to the discussion of the historical evidence MT. Whitney said that the political economy upon which the learned counsel depended for the support of their position, that of John Stuart Mills, had not been in- volved at the time the constitutional commission was held. The form of political economy that did prevail at that time, he said, was held by polit- ical economists of today to have no polit- ical bearing upon the question of di- rect taxes; that it is only of convenience in classification of taxes, because it is admitted that all taxes are partly direct and partly indirect. Referring to the classification of taxes by the constitu- stional commission, MT. Whitney said mot enough attention had been given to the debates upon the phrases in the con stitution descriptive of the various forms of taxation. These showed that the original draft of the constitution pre- sented by MT. Pinckney which the court in it's opinion had seemed to admit to be authentic, had not classed the cap itation tax as a direct tax, but as an indirect tax.
 Another subject which he referred to was the definition of the term duties" by the opposing counsel They seemed to hold that the word duties" was equiv alent to imports and excises" and in cluded nothing else. This idea ran through all that they had to say upon this subject.
 In the view of the members of the con- vention, said MT. Whitney there were two kinds of taxes, direct taxes and du- ties, imposts and excises The former were laid by the rule of apportionment and the latter by the rule of uniformity. This he said. explained what to him was remarkable fact when he bagan to study of the debates, the lack of interest by members of the convention in the question of laying taxes. They were rather interested in the question how taxes laid by the rule of apportionment were to be apportioned
 MT. Whitney spoke an hour, after which the court arose and adjournment until tomorrow was proclaimed.