least, may be construed to be identical with the "Capital" from which it issues. If a false situation thus created can be used to change the fundamental meaning of the Constitution; if the Tax Collector can thus benefit by his own wrong, and place the unjust burdens of his errors upon the shoulders of people entitled to be free, there would seem to be little benefit in Constitutional protection at all. But that which it is now especially desired to make clear is the fallacy of such arguments, for nothing could be more preposterous than the pretense that a Government could, upon such an argument, be entitled to continue a practice that, if Liberty is to be preserved, and the Constitution protected, must be ended, and can be ended, at once, and without injury to any. For it must be borne in mind that the Government has the full Constitutional right to raise all its necessary revenue by the lawful exercise of the power of taxation. Not to return to the same community a sum taken unconstitutionally can in no sense be a necessity, when there continues the full power to take an equivalent amount justly and in accord with Constitutional right. And as we live under God's rule, it will always be found that these alleged "necessities" to do wrong are, as John Milton and Lord Chatham have pointed out in denouncing them, "pleas of tyrants and creeds of slaves" alone!
It is thus found that what we are dealing with is but an amendment creating a power of further burdening an already heavily taxed people. We have learned, however, from the Supreme Court how such statutes must be construed. And it has told us why. It cannot too often be said we were slaves, were a real consent, our real consent, not thus required. The vital thing is that we must not be enslaved by interpretation that admits
