Posted on 07/10/2002 11:37:45 AM PDT by conway
Our U.S. Constitution is an agreement between We the People and our public servants. It is the rules of the game agreed upon before the Senate, house, executive and judicial branch of government were set into motion. It is the document that allows them to exist at all.
In this legal document of ours we set down specific duties to be performed by the various branches we brought into existance. We also set limits to the power they could wield and expressley forbade them others.
Article I section 9: "No capitation, or other direct tax shall be laid unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
Capitation: A direct uniform tax imposed on each head or person.
Direct tax: A tax on business property or savings dividens etc. The founders knew that without this clause our books would be open for inspection and we would no longer be secure in our papers and effects.
"...Herein before directed to be taken." referrs to Section VIII of the Constitution, which I encourage you to read in full.
What this means is that Congress has zero legal authority to impose these kinds of taxes on you and I. That being said, and all bills for raising revenue originate in Congress (section VII), how do they originate an Amendment to the constitutin like the 16th amendment which says:
(1913) "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among several States, and without regard to any sensus or renumeration." This is as in your face as is legally possible.
Sction VIII: "Congress shall have the power to raise and collect taxes, duties, Impost and excises...but all duties, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
We agreed to be governed by law and not man or a reliogion. Without our supreme laws of the land we are not free from arbitrary rule, which is the meaning of the word "Liberty."
Congress broke the law when they proposed this amendment and It makes no difference if it was ratified or not, it does not, in legal sense, exist at all.
"All laws repugnant to our Constitution are null and void. US Supreme Court. Marbury V Madison 2 Cranch 5 1803
One law has to be supreme so if you pass one that contradicts the supreme law then which one is valid? You win the Big Enchilada if you picked the laws in our supreme legal docment called the "CONSTITUTION".
This is why the Constitution isn't studied in our government induction camps.
This is true. We can repeal any amendment we like. But your theory on what types of amendments may be ratified or not is nonsense. Here is the actual law:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
If you look at Article One, Section 9, you find that the first clause refers to the importation of slaves, and the taxation of said slaves:
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
The fourth clause reads:
No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
So there it is. If common sense doesn't work on you, maybe plain English will. Right there it says that prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight no amendment could affect the clauses named. There are two obvious conclusions which can be derived from this language, both of which refute your notions:
1. That after 1808, the people had the expressed right to pass amendments which would directlt affect the clause regarding direct taxes.
2. That implicit in this language is the recognition that outside of those specific, limited items in Article 5, any amendment could affect any part of the Constitution.
In order for them to propose an Amendment like that.legally, would require that stipulation to be deleted from the Constitution first.
In other words, they would first have to have our permission to delete that clause so they could introduce such a bill.
It's been real. 1913 was a terrible year for our pockett books.
Can congress really eliminate an inaliable right? To do so defies common sense.
Also, before the 16th Amendment, amendments only further restricted or narrowed the scope of government. This changed after the 16th amendment.
Otherwise all we have is a document painted on the side of a barn with the piggies holding the paintbrush.
It makes sense that a constitution designed to guarantee a minimalist government subservient to the people, by force of arms, would not allow modification to invert that principle. Which the 16th amendment does.
Unlike some state constitutions, words of the the US Constitution are never deleted, although they may be made ineffective by subsequent amendments (e.g., the 21st Amendment which repealed Prohibition, the 18th Amendment). The Constitution had already given the Congress to imposes taxes, such as excise taxes, but originally prohibited Congress from levying an individual income tax. The 16th Amendment eliminated that prohibition. See Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railway Co. (1916) 240 US 1, 60 L.Ed 493, 36 S.Ct 236.
26 USC Section 7701 (a) (9) "United States. The term "United States" when used in a geographic sense includes only the States and the District of Columbia."
Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition P.763
Include. (Lat. inclaudere to shut in, keep within.) To confine within, hold as in an inclosure, take in, attain, shut up , contain, inclose, comprise, comprehend, embrace, involve. Term may, according to context, express an enlargement and have the meaning of and or in addition to, or merely specify a particular thing already included within general words theretofore used. "Including" within statute is interpreted as a word of enlargement or of illustrative application as well as a word of limitation.
Now Read: 26 USC Section 3121 (e) (1) "State. The term "State" (is "confined within, held as in an inclosure, taken in, attained, shut up to, contains, inclosed to, comprises, comprehends, embraces, involves") the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa."
Did I miss something?
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
Our U.S. Constitution is an agreement between We the People and our public servants.
Nonsense. The Constitution is an agreement between the several states and the Federal government. I know it starts with "We the People," but who ratified it? There was no popular vote - the states ratified it. Therefore it is an agreement between the states and the Federal government (We the People also elect the state officials, so in that sense it is an agreement between We the People and the Federal government).
Now follow me on this - if this is a contract between the states and the Federal government, ONLY the states or the Federal government can decide if a change to the contract is valid. I see no states suing to say that they never agreed to the 16th Amendment, so it is valid - despite what the tax protestors say about the way it was passed.
I don't like the income tax or the 16th Amendment either (although I think the 17th Amendment is far worse), but to change it you need to convince 2/3 of the House and Senate AND 3/4 of the states to repeal it. Good luck.
Now Read: 26 USC Section 3121 (e) (1) "State. The term "State" (is "confined within, held as in an inclosure, taken in, attained, shut up to, contains, inclosed to, comprises, comprehends, embraces, involves") the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa."
26 USC Section 3121 (e) (1) "State. The term "State" (is "confined within, held as in an inclosure, taken in, attained, shut up to, contains , inclosed to, comprises, comprehends, embraces, involves") the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa."
Yes you missed something. Common sense. The statute here is using "include" to meand that, in addition to the states, they are including these other territories whenever the statute mentions states. To have the interpretation you want, it would have to say something to the effect of "includes only."
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
Includes and including -- -- The terms "includes" and "including" when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.
This definition has been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
By the way, thanks for your service.
As a matter of fact, what his book claimed to "discover" was a 1913 legal memo worked up for the US Secretary of State (then the person responsible for keeping track of ratifications of proposed amendments) which mentioned these microscopic or obvious typos and logically explained why the typos did not affect the validity of the state ratifications.
Nobody that I know of has bothered to check on typos or other errors in the paperwork for previous amendments (although I have seen some variance in the punctuation of the Second Amendment, so maybe that would be a good place to start), but when working with so many far-flung legislatures in the age before electric typewriters (much less word processors) it was inevitable that such tiny errors could creep in.
But, the memo pointed out, we don't know if the error was in the copy that the legislators relied on when they voted to ratify or if it crept in later, the proposed 16th Amendment was readily available from a variety of sources without any such error so the legislators presumably had reliable copies somewhere, since a legislature lacked the power to change the text of a proposed amendment it is clear that none of these variants was deliberate, no state nor even a single legislator claimed that their vote was predicated on one of those typos and the vote would have been different on the authentic text, etc.
In any case, the courts have not only upheld the validity of the 16th Amendment and its adoption, but have said that the announcement of its adoption by the appropriate Executive Branch official (then the Secretary of State, now the National Archivist) is dispositive for the judicial branch.
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