On July 9, 1896, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate (he ran in 1896, 1900, and 1908), Scopes Trial prosecutor, and likely inspiration for Frank Baum’s 1900 “The Wizard of Oz,” addressed the candidate-less Democratic National Convention. The “silverites” — advocates for atomic number 47 as a national monetary standard — knew they wanted “free silver” as a dominant party tenet; but who best to lead the charge against the “gold bugs” and their candidate, former Ohio Governor William McKinley? By the end of the night, the Democrats and Populists had found their man.
“You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” Bryan declared in his impassioned anti-gold war cry. The crowd was thrilled. “Some, like demented things, divested themselves of their coats and flung them high in the air,” described one reporter. The next day, the convention tapped Bryan as their nominee.
However, “The Cross of Gold Speech,” one of the most famous speeches in American history, did more than just establish Bryan’s convictions about gold. It also showcased the Populist leader’s thoughts about the growing national debate on a federal income tax.
As recently as 1881, the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a Civil War-era income tax in Springer v. United States. However, in 1894, when Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which imposed a 2% tax on incomes over $4,000, the Court swiftly struck down the law in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, taxes were required to be “uniform throughout the United States.” While the Court had generally allowed exceptions for “indirect” taxes, it ruled that the 1894 income tax did not meet these requirements.
Bryan and his followers disagreed.
“They say we passed an unconstitutional law. I deny it,” he said. “The income tax was not unconstitutional when it was passed. It was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time. It did not become unconstitutional until one judge changed his mind.”
“The income tax is a just law,” he argued. “It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to pay his share of the burden of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.”
Although Bryan lost to McKinley in November, he played a crucial role in laying the groundwork for the progressive push for an income tax. After McKinley’s assassination in 1901, his successors, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, both supported a federal income tax at varying points in their careers.
President Taft, who respected the Supreme Court (and would eventually serve as its 10th Chief Justice), was initially hesitant to reintroduce a measure the Court had struck down less than two decades prior. However, he faced the pressing need to compensate for his key policy goal of reducing tariffs — and, by extension, tariff revenue.
In 1909, “Big Bill” hatched a plot: he would encourage Congress to support a constitutional amendment introducing a federal income tax, thereby dodging the question of the tax’s constitutionality.
“[An income tax] might be indispensable to the nation's life in great crises,” the president declared on June 16. “Although I have not considered a constitutional amendment as necessary to the exercise of certain phases of this power, a mature consideration has satisfied me that an amendment is the only proper course for its establishment to its full extent. I therefore recommend to the Congress that both Houses, by a two-thirds vote, shall propose an amendment to the Constitution conferring the power to levy an income tax upon the National Government without apportionment among the States in proportion to population.”
Congress agreed, passing the proposed amendment in July; three years later, the Progressive Movement crescendoed with the ratification of the 16th Amendment on February 3, one month before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
The new amendment (the first in a series of four known as the Progressive Amendments), redacted Article I, Section 8, stating: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration” [emphasis added].
Although the 16th Amendment was initially marketed to the masses as a weapon against the wealthy, it has since devolved into a weapon against the American people at large, transforming the federal government into what the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library called “a more powerful, centralized institution that sourced vast quantities of funding through the many incomes of individuals and the states.”
Just as the Progressive Era expanded the size and scope of the federal government, the Convention of States movement now seeks to restore Washington to the limited role envisioned by the Founders.
To join the historic march to the first-ever Article V convention, sign the Convention of States petition below!
