[Footnote 1: _Peck v. Lowe_, 247 U.S., 165.]

In a case decided a little earlier[1] the Court, speaking through Chief
Justice White, had said:

By the previous ruling (i.e., in _Brushaber v. Union Pacific
Railway Co._, 240 U.S., 1) it was settled that the provisions
of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of
taxation....

[Footnote 1: _Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co._, 240 U.S., 103, 112.]

From what has been said it will be evident that the doctrine of
exemption of state and municipal bonds from federal taxation is firmly
embedded in our law and has not been affected by the Sixteenth
Amendment.

Whether it is a doctrine suited to present-day conditions is a question
outside the scope of this paper.

The fear of federal encroachment, so strong in the minds of the makers
of our Constitution, has become little more than a tradition. To many it
doubtless will seem that any rule of law which operates to prevent the
nation, in the great exigency of war, from taxing a portion of the
property of its citizens is pernicious and should be changed.

If this be the view of a sufficient number the change can and will be
made. Lawyers think, however, that it will have to be done by the
orderly method of constitutional amendment, not by passing taxing
statutes which a reluctant Court will be obliged to declare