Amend. 14.-Rights of Citizens Indians as Citizens 1 1 Sec. 2.-Apportionment-Right to Vote Immediately following the sentence quoted above, it was said: But Indians not taxed are still excluded from the count, for the reason that they are not citizens. Their absolute exclusion from the basis of representation, in which all other persons are now included, is wholly inconsistent with their being considered citizens. Reduction of State's Representation in Congress Congress has never exercised the power conferred upon it by this section of reducing the representation of a State in the House of Representatives, but there can be no question of its power or its right to do so. Of its duty to do so, it alone is the judge. The amendment places the responsibility of enforcing its provisions upon that body. (Watson on the Constitution, Vol. II, p. 1653.) See also McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1 U. S. v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375. Section 3.-DISQUALIFICATION OF OFFICERS. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. This section is now of little importance, as Congress, by the act of June 6, 1898 (30 Stat. 432), removed the disabilities, as it was authorized to do by the last clause of the section. Section 4.-PUBLIC DEBT. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or See also same subject, p. 199. Amend. 14.-Rights of Citizens Sec. 4.-Public Debt emancipation of any slaves; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. The object of this section is apparent. There were only a few cases arising under it. Thorington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1. Hanauer v. Woodruff, 15 Wall. 439. Section 5.-ENFORCEMENT. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. When Congress Can Act Until some State law has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the fourteenth amendment, no legislation of the United States under said amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into activity. The legislation which Congress is authorized to adopt in this behalf is not general legislation upon the rights of the citizen, but corrective legislation, that is, such as may be necessary and proper for counteracting such laws as the States may adopt or enforce, and which, by the amendment, they are prohibited from making or enforcing, or such acts and proceedings as the States may commit or take, and which, by the amendment, they are prohibited from committing or taking. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 13. See also Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339. In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 554. U. S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 549. In U. S. v. Harris (106 U. S. 629) and Baldwin v. Franks (120 U. S. 678), Revised Statutes, section 5519 was held unconstitutional as a provision for the punishment of a conspiracy, by individuals, within a State, to deprive citizens of rights guaranteed by this amendment. Amendment 15.-RIGHT OF CITIZENS TO VOTE.' SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. See p. 30 for ratification. Amend. 15.-Right of Citizens to Vote. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. This amendment brings the right of United States citizens to vote within the protection of Congress. The right of suffrage is not coextensive with citizenship, and this amendment was not designed to confer the right upon anyone. It left the power to determine the qualifications of voters with the several States. U. S. v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, in which the act of Congress of May 31, U. S. v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 178. The power of Congress to legislate at all upon the subject of voting at State elections rests upon this amendment, and can be exercised only when a qualified voter is denied the right to vote because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and it is to this extent only that the power of the State is limited by this clause. It operates to nullify a provision in a State constitution restricting the right of suffrage to the white race. U. S. v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214. Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475. Guinn v. U. S. 238 U. S. 347. Meyers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368. Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651. A statute which purports to punish purely individual action can not be sustained as an appropriate exercise of the power conferred by this amendment on Congress to prevent action by the State through some one or more of its official representatives, and an indictment which charges no discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude is likewise destitute of support by such amendment. Revised Statutes, section 5507, held repugnant to this amendment. James v. Bowman, 190 U. S. 139. AMENDMENTS 16-19.-RECENT. Amendment 16.-INCOME TAX.1 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. In General It is clear on the face of this text that it does not purport to confer power to levy income taxes in a generic sense-an authority already possessed and never questioned-or to limit and distinguish between one kind of income taxes and another, but that the whole purpose of the amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source whence the income was derived. In Brushaber v. Union Pac. R. Co. (240 U. S. 17) the court said: There is no escape from the conclusion that the amendment was drawn for the purpose of doing away for the future with the principle upon which the Pollock case was decided; that is, of determining whether a tax on income was direct not by a consideration of the burden placed on the taxed income upon which it directly operated, but by taking into view the burden which resulted on the property from which the income was derived. See also Pollock v. Farmers', etc., Co., 157 U. S. 429; 158 U. S. 601. Stanton v. Baltic Min. Co., 240 U. S. 103. Tyee Realty Co. v. Anderson, 240 U. S. 115. Peck v. Lowe, 247 U. S. 165. Southern Pac. Co. v. Lowe, 247 U. S. 330. Questions of taxation must be determined by viewing what was actually done rather than the declared purpose of the participants. When applying the sixteenth amendment and income tax laws enacted under it, the courts must regard matters of substance and not of mere form. Weiss v. Stearn, 265 U. S. 242. Burk-Waggoner Oil Assn. v. Hopkins, 296 Fed. 492. In Smietanka v. Bank (257 U. S. 602) it was held that the income tax act made no provision for taxing income held and accumulated by a trustee for unborn and unascertained beneficiaries. In De Ganay v. Lederer (250 U. S. 376) the court sustained a Federal tax upon the income from stock, bonds, and mortgages owned by alien nonresidents, but in the hands of a resident agent. 1 This amendment takes income taxes out of the apportionment provision of Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 3. For ratification, see p. 31. Amend. 16.-Income Tax. In Atlantic Coast Line v. Daughton (262 U. S. 413) it was held that taxation of income from property, as distinguished from income of owner is constitutional. In U. S. v. Boss and Peake, 285 Fed. 410, it was held that retrospective income tax law was not unconstitutional. Taxation of Dividends Congress was at liberty, under this amendment, to tax as income without apportionment everything that became income in the ordinary sense of the word after the adoption of the amendment, including dividends received in the ordinary course by a stockholder from a corporation, even though they were extraordinary in amount and might appear upon analysis to be a mere realization in possession of an inchoate and contingent interest that the stockholder had in surplus of corporate assets previously existing. Lynch v. Hornby, 247 U. S. 339. Stock Dividends The word "income " as used in this amendment does not include a stock dividend. Such a dividened is capital and not income and can be taxed only if the tax is apportioned among the several States in accordance with Article 1, section 2, clause 3, and Article I, section 9, clause 4 of the Constitution. Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, following Towne v. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418. U. S. v. Phellis, 257 U. S. 156. Rockefeller v. U. S., 257 U. S. 176. Miles v. Safe Deposit Co., 259 U. S. 247. Property Outside the United States Congress has power to tax the income received by a native citizen of the United States domiciled abroad from property situated abroad. Cook v. Tait, 265 U. S. 47. Proceeds of Life Insurance A construction of a war taxing act as imposing both an income and an estate tax on the proceeds of life insurance should be avoided unless required in express terms. U. S. v. Supplee-Biddle Co., 265 U. S. 189. Salary of Federal Judges This amendment does not extend the taxing power to new or excepted subjects, but merely removes all occasion otherwise existing for an apportionment among the States of taxes laid on incomes from whatever source derived. Evans v. Gore, 253 U. S. 245, reversing 262 Fed. 550, and holding that the salary of a Federal judge was immune from an income tax by virtue of Article III, section 1, prohibiting the diminishing of a judge's salary during his term of office. Domestic and Foreign Corporations Income tax not unconstitutional because of inequality as between domestic and foreign corporations. National Paper Co. v. Edwards, 292 Fed. 633. |