The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-13
ARGUING THE INCOME TAX.
Continued from First Page.)

had been said about evils threatening
 the nation
 This law had been feared not because it laid the tax imposed, but because 1t
 was the entering wedge which would lead to the placing the burden of taxa
 tion upon the few. No instance was afforded by history, said MT. Carter, where the many had conspired to place the burdens upon the few. Wealth would always assert it's supremacy,and throw it's burden upon the many who did not hold it. MT. Carter said his ap- prehensions arose from fear that the class affected by the income tax would continue their efforts to avoid taxation. From that practice dangers might come that we did not want to consider. But if we wanted relief from the dan ger it would come when the rich as- sumed freely the payment of their right ful proportion of taxes.
 MT. Carter argued that congress had the right and power to determine classes for the purpose of taxation. It's power only was transcended when, having fix ed these classes. it undertook to take anyone out of his class and exempt him from the operation of the law.
 Justice White asked counsel how he accounted for the decisions of the state which had come to him from all parts that such attempted classiflcations were an evasion of the constitution and where the classification did not exist-per SC it was a perversion of the taxing power? power?
 But suppose it Is not an evasion?" responded MT. Carter. This action of congress is not an evasion; that would be an arbitrary use of power"
 The exceptions to the law, such as savings banks mutual insurance com panies and partnerships as discrimin- ated from stock corporations were all made by congress upon grounds of pub lie policy and were not to be attacked. The last point argued by MT. Carter was the contention that the subjects of taxation were not within the taxing power; that congress had mot the power to tax state and municipal bonds. This was a question upon which no decision had been made and MT. Car ter asked if the national government was to be precluded from doing to the securities of any state what all the other states of the union might do?
 In conclusion MT. Carter said the law had been enacted by the repre- sentatives of the people acting in their legitimate and uncontrollabe sphere as the taxing power of the govern ment elected by great popular ma jority and that the expression of an opinion by that means could always be accepted and considered as final. A triumphant majority he said, firm in the possession of a view which they believed to be just and right would find way to the accomplishment of their purpose, if need be,over the ruins of constitutions and of courts. It were the wise thing not to provoke such a contest.
 MT. Carter spoke two hours and half and was followed by MT. Choate.
 MT. Choate said: Tt never would have occurred to me to present either an | opening or a closing argument to this | great and learned court that if in their | wisdom, they found 1t necessary to pro | tect a suitor who sought here to invoke | the protection of the constitution, which | was created for us, possibly the popular | wrath might sweep the court away. It | is the first time ever heard that argu- ment presented to this court or any | other, and trust it will be the last. | I thought until to-day that there was a | constitution of the United States and | the business of the executive was to | uphold that constitution. I thought | this court was created for the purpose of maintaining the constitution as against unlawful conduct on the part of congress. It is news to me that con- gress IS the sole judge of the measures of the powers confided to it by the con stitution, and it is also news that that great fundamental principle that under lies the constitution, namely, the equal ity of all men before the law, has ceas- ed to exist"
 MT. Choate said that on the day of General Sherman's funeral ex-President Hayes said that he (Choate) would live to see the day when in the case of the death of any man of large wealth the state would take for itself all above a prescribed limit to his fortune and di- vide it or apply it to the equal use of all the people He (Choate) had looked upon that remark as the wanderings of 8 dreamer and yet in less than five ye ars he found himself in the supreme court of the United States contesting the va lidity of an alleged act of congress which was defended by the authorized legal representatives of the government upon the plea that 1t was only a tax levied upon extremely rich men. It was defended upon principles as com munistic, socialistic, populistic as had ever been addressed to any political as- sembly in the world.
 MT. Carter, MT. Choate continued, had said that In the convention which fram- ed the constitution there was one ever present fear This was-that by a com 1 bination of states an unjust tax might be put upon single state or little group of states. Mir Choate directed the attention of the court as to how the present law would strike. In 1873, Mas New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania paid four-fifths of the tax ( on incomes above $2,0O0 What was ( their political representation in the I house of representatives which can only 2 initiate the passage of revenue bills? out of 356, or a. little less V than onefourth. The increase of ex- emption from $2,O0O to $4OOO, MT Choate said, would bear upon the states with vastly greater force, so that they would pay nineteen-twentieths of the tax un- fer law Imposed upon them by other q l.L 1a. -I4 4