The 16th Amendment was a mistake or at least an accident:
In 1909, progressives in Congress again attached a provision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Conservatives, hoping to kill the idea for good, proposed a constitutional amendment enacting such a tax; they believed an amendment would never receive ratification by three-fourths of the states. Much to their surprise, the amendment was ratified by one state legislature after another, and on February 25, 1913, with the certification by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, the 16th amendment took effect. Yet in 1913, due to generous exemptions and deductions, less than 1 percent of the population paid income taxes at the rate of only 1 percent of net income.
Ironically, it was Nelson Aldrich, the bitterest opponent of the income tax (Aldrich's daughter had married Rockefeller's son), who proposed the amendment, assuming it would fail to be ratified and end the income tax question for years to come. The amendment passed the Senate unanimously. The House was also overwhelmingly in favor. After the amendment was ratified the newly elected Democrat Congress lowered the tariff and imposed the income tax.
The Sixteenth Amendment was similar to the Immigration Act of 1965 in that there was a widespread consensus in support of it. It was generally assumed that the country could live with a 1% or 2% tax on millionaires. Nobody realized how much of a change it really would create. Looking back, we often assume that people were arguing about what the bill would lead to, not about what they thought it meant.
The 16th Amendment was neither a mistake nor an accident.
by 100%. It was fully intentional.
The historians who are claiming this idea in their terrible published history books that they have embedded into our schools are committing historical malpractice and actively covering up for progressivism with this notion.
The progressives wanted it. The progressives set out to get it. The progressives won. We lost.
“Democrats were the anti-tariff party and more favorable towards an income tax. Republicans had been the tariff party, but a group of progressive Republicans wanted tariff reduction and would accept an income tax.”
Lincoln of course had enacted the first income tax in 1862, which was declared unConstitutional and repealed 10 years later.
Teddy R gave speeches in favor of an income tax. But I’m not sure if he was still President at the time.
The resolution that became the 16th Amendment was written by Republican Senator Norris Brown. This was 1909. Taft was President, the GOP also controlled the House and the Senate.
The income tax has Republican fingerprints all over it.
The 16th Amendment simply allows an income tax. The anti-tariff Democrat faction was hoping that it would result in reduced tariffs, which it did, but there was no requirment that it would.
The first rendition of the income tax, 1913, started at 1% and had a maximum rate of 7%. Only 4% of the population earned enough to owe income tax.
In 1913 the Army and Navy were small. Despite the recent Spanish American war we were far from a military power, so the national government wasn’t demanding a lot of money. Maybe for the Panama Canal. The administrative state bureaucracy was still tiny and not ruling every part of American life.
In 1913 the Federal government’s portion of the GDP was 3%. By contrast, every year after WWII the Federal government has spent from 18% to 24% of the GDP.