Some Important Questions And Answers ...for those of us in the fact-based, law-abiding, liberty-and-rule-of-law-preserving community...

   WHEN MAKING ITS RULING ON THE MEANING of the Constitutional term “capitation” (in Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)), the Supreme Court drew upon the analysis of American statesman Albert Gallatin. Gallatin was variously a state and federal congressman and senator, U.S. Minister to England and France, and the longest-serving Secretary of the Treasury in U.S. history.

   Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin produced a detailed report of matters relevant to that office, titled, “A Sketch of the Finances of the United States.”   Within this report Gallatin discusses the various Constitutional tax options available to the Congress for dealing with future federal revenue requirements. 

   Some of Gallatin’s material, particularly what is explicitly cited by the Supreme Court, is well known.  It’s been presented to every serious student of the tax for many years in Cracking the Code - The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America:

   “...Albert Gallatin, in his Sketch of the Finances of the United States, published in November, 1796, said: ‘The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people;...’ ... “He then quotes from Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and continues: &ls ...