APRIL 8, 1910
3
The Commoner.
"A Passionate Chant of Human Freedom
Think of Thomas Jefferson and you think
of the Declaration of Independence. This is a
particularly appropriate time for a study of that
great document. The late Moses Colt Tyler
wrote an essay on the Declaration of Indepen
dence, and that essay should he read by every
American citizen. Mr. Tyler pointed out that
what we call criticism is "not the only valid test"
of the genuineness and worth of any piece of
writing of great practical interest to mankind."
He said that there is also "the test of actual
use and service in the world, in direct contact
with the common sense and the moral sense of
large masses of men under various conditions
and for a long period. No writing which is not
essentially sound and true has ever survived this
test."
"Mado the Colonics nil Alive"
Mr. Tyler pointed out that from this test the
Declaration of Independence "need not shrink."
"Probably no public paper," said Mr. Tyler,
"ever more perfectly satisfied the immediate
purpose for which it was set forth. From one
end of the country to the other, and as fast as
it could be spread among the people, it was
greeted in public 'and private with every demon
stration of approval and delight. To a marvel
ous degree it quickened the friends of the revo
lution for their great task. 'This declaration,'
wrote one of the signers but a few days after
it had been proclaimed, 'has had a glorious
effeect has made these colonies all alive.'
'With the independency of the American states,'
said another political leader a few weeks later, 'a
new era in politics has commenced. Every con?
eideration respecting the propriety or impro
priety of a separation from Britain is now en
tirely out of the question. Our future hap
piness or misery, therefore, as a people, will de
pend entirely upon ourselves.' Six yers after
ward, in a review of the wholj struggle, a great
American scholar expressed his sense of the
relation of this document to it by saying that
'into the monumental act of independence,' Jef
ferson had 'poured the soul of the continent.' "
The Temp'tation to Forget
Mr. Tyler then proceeded to show that the
influence of this state paper on the political
character and conduct of the American people
since the close of the revolution has been great
beyond all calculation. He said:
"For example, after wo had achieved our own
national deliverance, and had advanced into that
enormous and somewhat corrupting material
prosperity which followed the adoption of the
constitution, the development of the cotton in
terests, and the expansion of the republic into
a trans-continental power, we fell, as is now
most apparent, under an appalling national
temptation the temptation to forget, or to re
pudiate, or to refuse to apply to the case of
our human brethren in bondage, the very prin
ciples which we ourselves had once proclaimed
as the basis of every rightful government, and
as the ultimate source of our own claim to an
untrammeled national life.
The Dignity of Human Nature
"The prodigious service rendered to us in this
awful moral emergency by the Declaration of
independence was, that in its public repetition
at least once every year in the hearing of vast
.throngs of the American people, in a'Kform of
almost religious sanctity, those few great ideas
as to the dignity of human nature, and the
asacredness of personality, and the indestructible
rights of man as mere man, with which we had
Bo gloriously identified the beginnings of our
national existence, and upon which we had pro
ceeded to erect all our political institutions both
for the nation and for the states. It did, in
deed, at last become very hard for us to listen
each year to the preamble of the Declaration of
Independence, and still to remain the owners
and users and catchers of slaves; still harder,
to accept the doctrine that the righteousness
and prosperity of slavery was to be taken as
:the dominant policy of the nation. The logic
of Calhoun was as flawless as usual, when he
concluded that the chief obstruction in the way
?f his system was the preamble of the Declarat
ion of Independence. Had It not been for the
inviolable sacredness given by it to those sweep
ing aphorisms about the natural rights of man,
it may be doubted whether, under the vast
practical inducements involved, Calhoun might
not have succeeded in winning over ah immense
majority of the American people to the sup
port of his compact and plausible Bchomo for
making slavery the basis of tho republic. It
was the preamble of the Declaration of Inde
pendence which elected Lincoln, which sent forth
tho emancipation proclamation, which gave vic
tory to Grant, which ratified tho thirteenth
amendment.
Spiritual Springs of National Character
"Moreover, wo can not doubt that tho perma
nent effects of tho great Declaration on tho
political and even the ethical ideals of tho Amer
ican people are wider and deeper than can bo
measured by our experience in grappling with
any single political problom; for they touch all
the spiritual springs of American national char
acter, and they create, for us and for all human
beings, a new standard of political justice and
a new principle in the science of government."
Mr. Tyler called attention to tho fact that among
all civilized peoples the one American document
best known is the Declaration of Independence
and that thus the spectacle of so vast and mag
nificent a political success has been everywhere
associated with tho assertion of tho natural
rights of man.
Classic Statement of Political Truths
" 'The doctrines it contained,' says Buckle,
'were not merely welcomed by a majority of the
French nation, but even tho government itself
was unable to withstand tho general feeling.
Its effect in hastening tho approach of tho
French revolution was indeed most re
markable.' Elsewhere also in many lands,
among many peoples, it has been appealed -to
again and again as an inspiration for political
courage, as a model for political conduct; and
if, as the brilliant English historian just cited
has affirmed, 'that noblo declaration ought
to be hung up In the nursery of every king,
and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace,'
it is because It has become the classic statement
of political truths which must at last abolish
kings altogether, or else teach them to identify
their existence with the dignity and happiness
of human nature."
Literary Character of a Great State Paper
Dealing with the literary character of this
great state paper, Mr. Tyler gave a most beauti
ful description of that to which he refers as "a
stately and a passionate chant of human free
dom." Mr. Tyler said: "Had the Declaration
of Independence been, what many a revolution
ary state paper is, a clumsy, verbose, and vapor
ing production, not even the robust literary
taste and tho all-forgiving patriotism of the
American people could hqve endured the weari
ness, tho nausea, of hearing its repetition in ten
thousand differont places, at least once every
year for so long a period. Nothing which has
not supreme literary merit has ever triumphant
ly endured such an ordeal, or over been sub
jected to it.
Tho Declaration's Persistent Fascination
"No man can adequately explain tho persistent
fascination which this state paper has had, and
which it still has, for the American people, or
its undiminished power -over them, without tak
ing into account its extraordinary literary mer
its; its possession of the witchery of true sub
stance wedded to perfect form; its massiveness
and incisiveness of thought; its art in the mar
shaling of tho topics with which it deals; its
symmetry, its energy, the deflniteness and
limpidity of its statements; its exquisite diction
at onco terse, musical and electrical; and
as an essential part of this literary outfit, many
of those spiritual notes which can attract and
enthrall our hearts veneration for God, venera
tion for man, veneration for principle, respect
for public opinion, moral earnestness, moral
courage, optimism, a stately and noble pathos
finally, self-sacrificing devotion tp a cause so
great as to bo herein identified with the happi
ness, not of one people only, but of human na
ture itself.
pondenco In a kind of war-song; it Is a statoly
and a pris'slonato chant of. human freedom; it
is a prose lyric of civil and military heroism.
Wo may bo altogether sure that no genuino de
velopment of literary taste among tho American
people In any period of our futuro history can
result in serious misfortuno to this particular
spocimon of American literature."
The Most Pathetic Utterance of Any Ago
"Upon tho whole, this is the most command
ing and the most pathetic utterance, in any age,
in any language, of national grievances and of
national purposes; having a Demosthenic mo
mentum of thought, and a fervor of emotional
appeal such as Tyrtaeus might have put into
his war-songs. Indeed, tho Declaration of Indo-
CONGRESS AND THE INCOME TAX
Louisville, Ky., April 4, 1910. Editor of
The Commoner: Tho enclosed correspondonco
explains itself. You may think it worth whilo
to publish samo. Very truly,
W. B. FLEMING.
Macon, Mo., January 8, 1910. Mr. W. B.
Fleming, Louisville, Ky. Under date December
13, 1909 in Commoner you wrote: "For. 100
years it has been hold by United States supremo
court that congress has power to levy an income
tax." Would you please - cite tho United
States supremo court repots whore I may find
such decisions? Yours
WEB M. RUBEY.
Louisville, Ky., January 14, 1910. Mr. Wob
M. Ruboy, Attorney, Macon, Mo. Dear Sir: Re
plying to your letter under date of January 8
in which you refer to an article of mine which
appeared in The Commoner wherein I stated
that for ono hundred years it had been hold
by tho United States supremo court that con
gress has power to levy an Income tax, and in
which you ask for referonco to tho United States
supremo reports which Justify this statoment, I
have to state as follows:
Tho question of tho right of congress to levy
an income tax is dependent upon tho question
of whether such tax is direct or Indirect. If
it is a direct tax, the levy of such a tax by con
gress in the manner in which tho income taxes
have been levied is unconstitutional.
The question of what is meant by direct taxes
within the meaning of the constitution was
decided by the supremo court in the early caso
of Hilton vs. U. S. 3 Dallas 171. By act of
Juno 5, 1794, congress undertook to levy a tax
on carriages, and this act was attacked as un
constitutional upon tho ground that it was a
direct tax, but the court sustained tho tax upon
tho ground that direct taxes within the meaning
of tho constitution was only "capitation and
land taxes."
This decision was followed in Pacific Insur
ance Co. vs. Soule 7 Wallace 433; Scholey vs.
Rew; Springer vs. U. S. 102 U. S. Reports, 586,
(in which the question of an income tax was
directly in issue) and in a number of other
cases.
This construction was considered so well set
tled that it was adopted by all tho leading
writers on constitutional law. See First Kent
Com. 254; First Story Constitutional Law 955;
Cooley on Constitutional Limitations 509; Miller
on tho Constitution 237; Pomeroy's Constitu
tional Law Sec. 281 and Burroughs on Taxation
pago 502.
In the case of Pollock vsFarmers Loan and
Trust company, 157 U. S., in which tho supremo
court reversed Itself, Justices White and Harlan
in their dissenting opinion state that the result
of the decision of tho majority of the court in
that case, overthrows an unbroken line of de
cisions In the construction that had been placed
upon tho constitution by all the departments of
the government, including the judiciary, for ono
hundred years; a construction so uniform that
it had become imbedded In our jurisprudence
as a part of the constitution Itself.
Beginning with the act of congress August 5,
1861 and ending with that of July 14, 1870,
there were some nine acts levying an income
tax, none of which were over declared uncon
stitutional. My recollection is that the decisions of tho
supreme court had always been unanimous up
to tho last decision, which held the income tax
unconstitutional, and in this last decision tho
court divided with a bare majority holding tho
act to be unconstitutional.
You will find most of the cases on this subject
referred to in the arguments of counsel and in
the opinion of tho judges In the case pf Pollock
vs Farmers Loan and Trust company, referred
to above. Very truly yours,
W. B. FLEMING.
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