[Publius Valerius]

The income tax was first begun during the 1860s to finance the War.

For a brief history, see the IRS website.

http://www.irs.gov/irs/article/0,,id=98142,00.html

While the Supreme Court later struck down certain income taxes as unconstitutional, to pin ones hopes on the whim of the Supreme Court continuing to hold that income taxes are direct taxes (especially when the government has a history of collecting income taxes before the 16th amendment) seems pretty foolish to me.

[libertarianben]

"The income tax was first begun during the 1860s to finance the War."

So we add this to the list of constitutional violations of Lincoln.