overturned doctrines that had been acquiesced in almost from the
foundation of the Government. A strong party was in favor of enacting
another income tax law and bringing the question again before the Court
in the hope that the Court as then constituted might be induced to
overrule or materially modify the doctrine of the Pollock case. The
President and his advisers viewed such a proposal with disfavor. To
their minds the proper way to establish the right of Congress to levy an
income tax was by an amendment to the Constitution, not by an assault
upon the Supreme Court. Accordingly on June 16, 1909, the President
transmitted a message to Congress[2] recommending a constitutional
amendment, and proposing, in order to meet the present need for more
revenue, an excise tax on corporations. The proposal, coupled as it was
with a suggestion that such an act might be made to serve for purposes
of federal supervision and control as well as revenue, met with favor
and was enacted into law.

[Footnote 1: _Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co._, 157 U.S., 429.]

[Footnote 2: _Congressional Record_, June 16, 1909, p. 3450.]

President Taft, himself an eminent constitutional lawyer, in his message
recommending the law expressed full confidence in its constitutionality.
The same view was taken by able lawyers who surrounded him in the
capacity of advisers. The act is understood to have been drafted by Mr.
Wickersham, the Attorney General, and vouched for by Senator Elihu Root
and others of scarcely less authority in the domain of constitutional
law.

Against opinions from such sources one takes the field with diffidence.
I venture, however, to outline briefly some reasons for doubting the