The last example of judicial interference which I shall mention was the
nullification, in 1895, of a statute of Congress which imposed an income
tax. The states have since set this decision aside by constitutional
amendment, and I should suppose that few would now dispute that the
Court when it so decided made a serious political and social error. As
Mr. Justice White pointed out, the judges undertook to deprive the
people, in their corporate capacity, of a power conceded to Congress "by
universal consensus for one hundred years."[15] These words were used in
the first argument, but on the rehearing the present Chief Justice waxed
warm in remonstrating against the unfortunate position in which his
brethren placed the Court before the nation, protesting with almost
passionate earnestness against the reversal by half-a-dozen judges of
what had been the universally accepted legal, political, and economic
policy of the country solely in order that "invested wealth" might be
read "into the constitution" as a favored and protected class of
property. Mr. Justice White closed by saying that by this act the
Supreme Court had "deprived [the Government] of an inherent attribute of
its being.
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