Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/238

210 2IO HARVARD LAW REVIEW. direct taxes upon real property and slaves, and apportioned them among the several States.^ These statutes, therefore, cannot be considered as sustaining the doctrine that a direct tax upon per- sonalty must be apportioned. It seems, therefore, if either of the suggestions which I have made be valid, that the terms '' direct taxes" in the Constitution means only what it has been considered to mean for nearly one hundred years ; namely, a direct tax upon real estate only. But even if this is not so, still the term must mean direct taxes, and it need not be, and it ought not to be, admitted that the taxes levied by sects. 27-37 of the Act of Congress of August 27, 1894, are direct taxes in any sense, either upon land or any invested property. As is said by Mr. Justice White : " The point involved is whether a tax on net income, when such income is made up by aggregating all sources of revenue and deducting repairs, insurance, losses in business, exemptions, etc., becomes to the extent to which real^ estate revenues may have entered into the gross income, a direct tax on the land itself. In other words, does that which reaches an income, and thereby reaches rentals indirectly, and reaches the land by a double indirection, amount to direct levy on the land itself V ^ It is submitted that this is an absolutely unanswerable argument, and yet it is nothing but a plain statement of fact ; and the same argument applies to the tax on income derived from personalty. The question is not whether Congress can or cannot levy a tax upon personalty, as it is stated lo be in the opinion of the majority of the Court, ^ but whether Congress must apportion a direct tax levied upon personalty. No one contends or believes that the United States cannot tax personal property directly in some way. It is not true that Congress has hitherto neglected to exercise its right of taxation on personal property, as seems to be intimated by the learned Chief Justice.* Beside the Carriage Tax Act of June 5, 1794, direct taxes on personal property were levied by the rule of uniformity by the Act of January 18, 181 5, c. 22, 3 Stat. 180, by which duties were imposed upon ( among other articles ) pig-iron, hats, caps, and umbrellas, manufactured or made for sale within the United States. By the Acts of July i, 1862, c. 119, 12 Stat. 432, 473; June 30, 1864, c. 173, 13 Stat. 223, 281; March 3, 1865, c. yZ 1 Acts of July 14, 1798, c. 75, I Stat. 597 ; August 2, 1813,0. 37,3 Stat. 53 ; Janu- ary 9, 1815, c. 21, 3 Stat. 164 ; March 5, 1816, c. 24, 3 Stat. 255. 8158 U. S. 629. * 158 U. S. 629.
 * 157 U.S. 645.