by
words defining the source of the income, as, from land, merchandise
or banking, but, in its general sense, it means gross savings from
all sources. When received in money it is an income and not until
then. An income tax was paid, and cheerfully paid, by American
citizens during and since the war, in vast sums, and it did not
occur to citizen, lawyer or judge that the constitution of the
United States made a distinction between incomes from rents and
income from notes or bonds. The states tax both land and bonds.
Why may not the United States tax income from each alike? Many of
the largest incomes in the United States are derived from rents.
To except them by technical reasoning from a general tax on incomes
will tend to disparage the Supreme Court among "plain people." If
incomes from rents must be excepted, then no income tax ought to
be assessed. This decision, if adhered to, may cripple the government
in times of emergency. If made when the income tax was first
imposed, it would have reduced the national revenue $347,000,000,
for no income tax would have been enacted if rents were excluded
from taxable incomes.

I do not propose to narrate the numerous internal revenue laws,
which have been enacted and modified at every session of Congress
since 1861, or the innumerable objects of taxation embraced in
them, for such a narrative would fill too much space. The discussion
of these laws occupied a large portion of the time of Congress.
The articles or productions subject to taxation included for a time
nearly everything for the use of man. I trust the time is far
distant when such sweeping internal taxation will be required again,
but if it should come, the Congress of that day can find in our
experience resources more bountiful than Aladdin's lamp.

Direct taxes, to be apportioned among the states, are not likely
to be again assessed after the experience we had as to the last
direct tax. Besides the difficulty of collecting it, there is the
palpable objection that it is an unequal, and therefore an unjust,
tax. New states, and especially agricultural states, have not the
same ability to pay direct taxes as older commercial and manufacturing
states, having within them great cities with accumulated wealth,
in the form of stocks, bonds and patents.

The office of commissioner of internal revenue has fortunately been
filled, as a rule, by gentlemen of standing and character of a high
order of intelligenc