This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our fathers
understood "better than we."
Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted
upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it--how they
expressed that better understanding.
Here as will be seen, Lincoln took every important word and phrase, and
showed exactly what persons and things were included under them. Then he
went ahead with his argument with the assurance that his audience and he
were treading the same path.
Somewhat similar are the definitions in many cases at law, where the
issue is whether the agreed facts in a case come under a certain term or
not. The Constitution of the United States provides that "direct taxes"
shall be apportioned among the states in proportion to their population,
but makes no such restriction on the levying of "duties," "imposts," and
"taxes." When Congress establishes a new form of tax, therefore, such as
the income tax or the corporation tax, the Supreme Court is pretty sure
to be called on to decide under which of these large constitutional
classes it falls. In such cases as the Income Tax cases, which decided
that the income tax laid in the Act of 1904 was unconstitutional, and in
the Corporation Tax cases, which upheld the Act of 1909, both the
arguments of counsel and the decision of the court deal wholly with the
definition of the term "direct tax.
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