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198 198 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, POLLOCK V. FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY. TT7 HEN a court of last resort not only overrules in effect three ' ' direct adjudications made by itself, but also refines away to the vanishing point two other of its decisions, and thereby cripples an important and necessary power and function of a coordinate branch of the government, and delivers an opinion in which is laid down a doctrine that is contrary to what has been accepted as law for nearly one hundred years, it is neither improper nor unprofessional carefully and earnestly to scrutinize that decision and the authorities and reasons upon which it is founded. Indeed, it is absolutely necessary to the science of jurisprudence and to the survival of correct legal principles that such a judgment should be subjected to analysis and to whatever criticism an examination of the reasons given for it may reasonably suggest. If it be dem- onstrably wrong, the consensus of opinion of the legal profession will in time work out the right. If it be demonstrably right, it will stand. As was said by Mr. Justice Gray and Judge Lowell on page 52 of their joint article, " A Legal Review of the Case of Dred Scott, " which first appeared in 20 Law Reporter, 61, under the title " The Case of Dred Scott, " and was afterwards printed in pamphlet form : — " We have freely exercised the right, which is allowed to every member of the profession, of controverting arguments and opinions advanced on any legal question by any individual, however distinguished by ability or position, so long as it is not judicially adjudged and settled. But upon the single point adjudicated, more deference is due to the deliberate judgment of the highest tribunal ot the country. As two judges, how- ever, and those not the least eminent, do not concur even in the judg- ment, we feel it to be our duty to examine the soundness of the positions upon which it rests. " No case of recent times has occasioned so much discussion and notoriety as that of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U. S. 429, and 158 U. S. 601, — the so called ** Income Tax Case. " That cause was a bill in equity filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York by a citizen