the points actually fully discussed or decided therein (see as to possible dicta Cohens vs. Virginia, 6 Wheaton 399), they will afford proper solution in the fundamental principles really involved and fully considered.
For none can deny that before the "burdening" Amendment, free Americans possessed a clear liberty to use the results of their "pursuit of Happiness," at their free discretion, as "Capital" or "Income"; no one can deny that the slow accretions of Capital, as against equal possible wastage, could at their free discretion, and until they voluntarily severed it, still remain only Capital, and untaxable as such. Where, it may be asked, is our clear consent, that any taxing officer can destroy the fundamental liberty, by calling what the Supreme Court has maintained for half a century to be Capital, and Capital only;—what it never in all history has been, that is the entirely different thing called "Income"? Where, it is repeated, has our consent ever been granted, without which we would otherwise be reduced to servitude? Where is there the slightest evidence of assent to that? Is there the slightest doubt as to what the reply of the Fathers would be,—the real test?
The Supreme Court has more than once definitely ruled that the mere accretions to the Capital fund are but increases of Capital, not Income at all (Gray vs. Darlington, 15 Wall. 63; Lynch vs. Turrish, 247 U. S. 221, a very recent and unanimous decision; and see Towne vs. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418), the whole difficulty is described by Mr. Justice Holmes when, in his opinion in the Northern Securities case, 193 U. S., at page 403, he says: "Much trouble is made by substituting other phrases assumed to be equivalent, which then are reasoned from as if they were in the Act." And complete solution must result, if, in the present case, these words
