[Taxing the rich] was supported by the Socialist party, the Populist party, and by the Democratic party with a few honorable exceptions, simply as a means of re-distributing the wealth.
If once you give the power to the nation to tax all the incomes…you give them the power to tax the states, not out of their existence, but out of their vitality.
The fury of ignorant class hatred has dashed itself in vain against the constitution…Thanks to the court, our government is not to be dragged into communistic warfare against rights of property and the rewards of industry.
[This is] Class legislation and attempts of the majority to spoliate private property [that] would ultimately wreck the American republic.
[This tax is based upon] principals as communistic, socialistic—what shall I call them—populistic as ever have been addressed to any political assembly in the world.
[The Court must] bring the Congress back to a true sense of the limitations of its powers….[such a tax on wealth will lead to] communism, anarchy, and then, the ever following despotism.
The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war constantly growing in intensity and bitterness.
I protest against this betrayal of our ancient principals. I protest against this treason to our faith, to our platform, to our traditions, to our heroes. I protest against partial laws, whether they be intended to favor the few or the many. I demand for all men the same equality before the law which they enjoy in the sight of God….I demand now, as I have always demanded, one citizenship, one country, one law, one Democratic faith, one common plane of equality for all the people, without distinction of wealth, of birth, or race, or of creed!
[A tax on incomes exceeding $4,000 will drive] rich men to go abroad and live.
It may be impracticable that our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom should go on.
