Taxes: Income Quotes

[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.

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Joseph Choate, a New York Republican, was the an anti-tax lawyer arguing before the court. 1895.
324803/07/1895 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

[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.

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George F. Edmunds, former Republican senator from Vermont. March 7, 1895.
324703/07/1895 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

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.

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Justice Stephen Field, concurs with the majority opinion against the income tax.
05/20/1894 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

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!

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Bourke Cockran (D-NY).
01/31/1894 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

[A tax on incomes exceeding $4,000 will drive] rich men to go abroad and live.

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Letter to the editor, New York World by Ward McAllister, a prominent figure in high society.
01/30/1894 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

It may be impracticable that our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom should go on.

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Senator David Hill (D-NY), The New Republic.
324401/01/1894 | Full Details | Law(s): Tax: Income

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