  Remarks in the Senate, April 7, 1870. The Senate having under consideration a Joint Resolution from the House, with an amendment by the Committee on Finance, declaratory of the meaning and intention of the law relating to the Income Tax, Mr. Sumner said,— I shall make no opposition to the amendment of the Committee on Finance, as I understand it is to relieve the Department from a difficulty which has arisen in the interpretation of a statute; but I desire to say now—and I take this earliest opportunity—that I think the income tax ought not to be continued any longer. Mr. Conkling [of New York]. ReËstablished, you mean. Mr. Sumner. Very well; I accept the amendment of the Senator from New York: it ought not to be reËstablished. Mr. Scott [of Pennsylvania]. It has expired. Mr. Sumner. It has expired. There was an understanding, when it was established, that it should live only into the year 1870. It has now reached its natural death, and no resurrection ought to operate upon it. An income tax is a war tax. It ought not to be made After further debate, in which different Senators participated, Mr. Sumner spoke again, as follows:— Mr. President,—I should not have said another word but for the very confident statement made by my friend, the Senator from Ohio, that at a proper time he will show the fairness of this tax. Sir, if he can show its fairness, he will do what no person before him has ever been able to do,—what no speaker in Parliament, no speaker in Congress, no writer on taxation or political economy has ever been able to accomplish. The Senator assumes in advance a very considerable task. Let me commend him to the candid, absolutely impartial, and authoritative words of Mr. McCulloch, in his work on Taxation and Funding. We all know the authority of this writer; none better can “It would no doubt have the supposed effects, [i. e. be successful,] could it be fairly assessed. But the practical difficulties in the way of its fair assessment are not of a sort that can be overcome. And the truth is, that taxes on income, though theoretically equal, are in their practical operation most unequal and vexatious.” Mr. Sherman. Read the paragraph immediately before that, in which he speaks of the theory of an income tax. Mr. Sumner. I should rather read a paragraph after it, with the permission of the Senator. [Laughter.] I have read the chapter, and I understand it; and there are words here to which I call the attention of my friend:— “After the Legislature has done all that can be done to make it equal, it will be most unequal.” Strong language that! “To impose it only on certain classes of incomes, or to impose it on all incomes, without regard to their origin, is alike subversive of sound principle. Nothing, therefore, remains but to reject it, or to resort to it only when money must be had at all hazards, when the ordinary and less exceptionable means of filling the public coffers have been tried and exhausted, and when, as during the late war, Hannibal is knocking at your gates, and national independence must be secured at whatever cost. An unreasoning necessity of this sort is the only satisfactory justification of taxes on property and income.” This is the voice of Science. It is not the voice of a political partisan, or of the representative of any Administration anxious to establish a system of taxation, but it is the voice of Science itself, speaking by one of its—I may say chosen authorities. How can this testimony be answered? If you come back to an authority of a different character, take a statesman. The Senator from California [Mr. Casserly] has referred to Sir Robert Peel, who is known as the modern author of the income tax; but he has left his testimony behind. I quote words from different speeches, showing how he has characterized it. He admitted that it was “a tax which had hitherto been reserved for time of war”; and that “the question of its imposition was, whether the political necessity was of such magnitude and urgency as to justify it”; and then that it “ought to be accompanied by measures of simultaneous relief.” Then, “he did not deny that it was an inquisitorial tax”; and again, that “a certain degree of inquisitorial scrutiny was inseparable from an income tax”; and further, that “a good deal of inconvenience inevitably arose from the inquiries that must be instituted into the properties of men, in the imposition of an income tax”; moreover, that “one great objection to the income tax was, that it fell with peculiar severity upon those who were determined to act honestly.” In harmony with his testimony is that also of Mr. Gladstone, named by the two Senators who have preceded me. The Senator from Ohio reminds us that Mr. Gladstone has sustained an income tax. Have we not all sustained an income tax? Mr. Sherman. He does it this very year. Mr. Sumner. This very year, and why? The Senator knows perfectly how England is pressed by taxation,—how difficult it is to find objects for taxation in order to meet the great demands upon her exchequer. He knows that England is obliged now, in time of peace, to meet the responsibilities of war. It is on account of that terrible war debt which still hangs over her, the interest of which must be annually paid, that she is obliged to assume even in a period of peace this responsibility. I think we are in no such condition. Our war is happily over, and I know no reason why the responsibilities and obligations assumed during that period should be prolonged now during the reign of peace. Sir, let us put an end to the war. And I know no better way to give our testimony to the end of the war than by stopping that taxation which was born of the war. |
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