Ark,
A quick history lesson about the 16th amendment;
It was legally voted on and passed to the states by the congress in July of 1909, under the Taft administration.
The states ratified by 36 of the states by 2/1913 and 42 out of the 48 by 3/1913.
The background of the proposal for a progressive tax comes from one of the socialist parties back in the late 1880’s. They followed Marx and Engle’s doctrine that in order to control the masses, the income tax is a needed step with public education another.
It was sold to the public that they were going to ‘soak’ the rich, but the joke is on the public, by 1943 everyone was not paying taxes but having the taxes taken out as they made the money – something like only 30 years to screw it all up.
The legality of it was never in question but the supreme court justice that you are speaking of, Charles Hughes made the comment when he was governor of New York in or about 1909 – “"from whatever source derived" implied that passage would confer the federal government with the power to tax state and municipal bonds and thus excessively centralize government power.” and this has been used as a prop for the anti-16th amendment people since the 50’s.
One thing that has been also used is the Knox argument, where the Secretary of State Knox prematurely announced the ratification of the amendment on Febuary 25, 1913 but in fact there were more than the 36 states needed to pass it at that time, Vermont being the last needed to give a cushion of 40 states.
The last thing that is used by some nut jobs is the idea that the wording of the ratification replies was not the same as the question sent to the states by the congress. Well that does not hold up well when you look at the cultural differences in language and the states only having to say yea or nay on the amendment.
As for JP Morgan, he was one of the people that saved this country in 1907. If it was not for him, there would be a complete collapse of the entire country. The bankers and the government wanted to stabilize the monetary system and this is what they came up with, what a mess.
And who is really to blame for all this, the people - Greed, selfishness and the need to over spend to compete with the other guy.
