To the many similar authorities may be added a single quotation from Mr. Justice Pitney's decision in the Eisner case, 252 U. S. 189: "A proper regard for its genesis, as well as its very clear language, requires also that this amendment" (the XVI) "shall not be extended by loose construction, so as to repeal or modify, except as applied to income, those provisions of the Constitution that require an apportionment according to population for direct taxes upon property, real and personal. This limitation still has an appropriate and important function, and is not to be overridden by Congress or disregarded by the Courts." But, of course, it is imperative that the original provision, that thus still stands in full force and effect, and the reasons for it, be understood, if it is to be given its fully intended effect; and it is from the fact that, so far as the writer has discovered, this most vital viewpoint has nowhere, as yet, been even presented to the Courts, that this present Essay has been undertaken.
This is all the more surprising, if it be but remembered how constantly and repeatedly the Supreme Court has instructed us as to the proper and necessary method for the correct interpretation of the Constitution and its Amendments.
In the first place, the meaning of the Constitution never varies. It means today exactly what it meant on the day of its adoption. To hold otherwise would destroy the judicial character of the Supreme Court, and make the continuance of our "unalienable" rights completely uncertain. This has been forcibly stated in South Carolina vs. United States, 199 U. S., at 448: "The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted it means now. * * * Those things which
