Opinion ID: 88025
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The sixth question is:

Text: Whether the taxes paid by the plaintiff, and sought to be recovered back in this action, are not direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. In considering this subject, it is proper to advert to the several provisions of the Constitution relating to taxation by Congress. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which shall be included in this Union, according to their respective numbers, &c. [] Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. [] No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census of enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.' No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. [] These clauses contain the entire grant of the taxing power by the organic law, with the limitations which that instrument imposes. The national government, though supreme within its own sphere, is one of limited jurisdiction and specific functions. It has no faculties but such as the Constitution has given it, either expressly or incidentally by necessary intendment. Whenever any act done under its authority is challenged, the proper sanction must be found in its charter, or the act is ultra vires and void. This test must be applied in the examination of the question before us. If the tax to which it refers, is a direct tax, it is clear that it has not been laid in conformity to the requirements of the Constitution. It is therefore necessary to ascertain to which of the categories, named in the eighth section of the first article, it belongs. What are direct taxes, was elaborately argued and considered by this court in Hylton v. United States, [] decided in the year 1796. One of the members of the court, Justice Wilson, had been a distinguished member of the Convention which framed the Constitution. It was unanimously held, by the four justices who heard the argument, that a tax upon carriages, kept by the owner for his own use, was not a direct tax. Justice Chase said: I am inclined to think, but of this I do not give a judicial opinion, that the direct taxes contemplated by the Constitution are only two, to wit: a capitation or poll tax simply, without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance, and a tax on land.