From: Patrick McKEE <paradoxmagnus@earthlink.net>
Subject: [Cornforth-Strategies] The Law that Never Was???
To: alliancepeaceprosperity@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2011, 6:49 PM
Many people "believe" that the 16th Amendment was SUPPOSEDLY not ratified based on Bill Benson's work & the book THE LAW THAT NEVER WAS.
The authority of the federal government to collect its income tax depends upon the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the federal income tax amendment, which was allegedly ratified in 1913.
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/home.asp
Even if the 16th Amendment were properly ratified, according to Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, it has always been unconstitutional for the U.S. Federal Government to directly tax We the People in their property, wages, salaries, or earnings. The judges of the U.S. Supreme Court rejected any claims that the 16th Amendment changed the constitutional limits on direct taxes in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1, when they ruled that it "created no new power of taxation" and that it "did not change the constitutional limitations which forbid any direct taxation of individuals".
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/ratification.asp
It appears to me that Bill Benson is arguing a FALLACY.
FALLACY - 1a obsolete : guile, trickery b : deceptive appearance : deception; 2a : a false or mistaken idea <popular fallacies> b : erroneous character : erroneousness; 3: an often plausible argument using false or invalid inference
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fallacy
In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning in argumentation. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor (e.g. appeal to emotion), or take advantage of social relationships between people (e.g. argument from authority). Fallacious arguments are often structured using rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical argument, making fallacies more difficult to diagnose. Also, the components of the fallacy may be spread out over separate arguments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
Bill Benson's PREMISE that "[t]he authority of the federal government to collect its income tax depends upon the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution" is WRONG. The REASON the 16th Amendment "created no new power of taxation" & "did not change the constitutional limitations which forbid any direct taxation of individuals" is because the SO-CALLED "income tax" is actually an EXCISE TAX & CONGRESS already had the power to TAX INCOMES via an EXCISE TAX.
"Duties and imposts are terms commonly applied to levies made by governments on the importation or exportation of commodities. Excises are 'taxes laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, and upon corporate privileges.' Cooley, Const. Lim. 7th ed. 680.
…
"We must remember, too, that the revenues of the United States must be obtained in the same territory, from the same people, and excise taxes must be collected from the same activities, as are also reached by the states in order to support their local government."
FLINT v. STONE TRACY CO., 220 U.S. 107 (1911)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/220/107.html
"The subject-matter of taxation open to the power of the Congress is as comprehensive as that open to the power of the states, though the method of apportionment may at times be different. 'The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.' Article 1, 8. If the tax is a direct one, it shall be apportioned according to the census or enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise, it shall be uniform throughout the United States . Together, these classes include every form of tax appropriate to sovereignty. Cf. Burnet v. Brooks, 288 U.S. 378, 403 , 405 S., 53 S.Ct. 457, 464, 465, 86 A.L.R. 747; Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1, 12 , 36 S.Ct. 236, L.R.A.1917D, 414, Ann.Cas.1917B, 713. Whether the tax is to be [301 U.S. 548, 582] classified as an 'excise' is in truth not of critical importance. If not that, it is an 'impost' (Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601, 622 , 625 S., 15 S.Ct. 912; Pacific Insurance Co. v. Soule, 7 Wall. 433, 445), or a 'duty' (Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 546, 547; Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 570 , 15 S.Ct. 673; Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41, 46 , 20 S.Ct. 747). A capitation or other 'direct' tax it certainly is not. 'Although there have been, from time to time, intimations that there might be some tax which was not a direct tax, nor included under the words 'duties, imposts, and excises,' such a tax, for more than 100 years of national existence, has as yet remained undiscovered, notwithstanding the stress of particular circumstances has invited thorough investigation into sources of revenue.' Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 557 , 15 S.Ct. 673, 680. There is no departure from that thought in later cases, but rather a new emphasis of it. Thus, in Thomas v. United States, 192 U.S. 363, 370 , 24 S.Ct. 305, 306, it was said of the words 'duties, imposts, and excises' that 'they were used comprehensively to cover customs and excise duties imposed on importation, consumption, manufacture, and sale of certain commodities, privileges, particular business transactions, vocations, occupations, and the like.'" CHAS. C. STEWARD MACH. CO. v. DAVIS , 301 U.S. 548 (1937)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/301/548.html
In FACT, in 1895 in POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO. the U.S. SUPREME COURT even talked about the FACT that TAXATION on income derived from "gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments" via an EXCISE TAX had been PREVIOUSLY SUSTAINED & after the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1916 in BRUSHABER v. UNION PACIFIC R. CO. it REJECTED the CONTENTION that the SO-CALLED "income tax" was a "direct tax".
"We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.
...
We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. But this is not such an act, and the scheme must be considered as a whole."
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/158/601.html
"We are of opinion, however, [240 U.S. 1, 11] that the confusion is not inherent, but rather arises from the conclusion that the 16th Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation; that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes. And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it,..." BRUSHABER v. UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/240/1.html
The PURPOSE of the 16th AMENDMENT was NOT to give CONGRESS the authority to "directly tax We the People in their property, wages, salaries, or earnings" as Bill Benson INFERS, it was simply to make sure that taxes on income would always be considered as INDIRECT TAXES, REGARDLESS of WHAT the income was derived from. Thus CONGRESS could TAX the income derived from PROPERTY & INVESTMENTS with an EXCISE TAX.
History and Purpose of the Amendment
The ratification of this Amendment was the direct consequence of the Court's decision in 1895 in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.,1 whereby the attempt of Congress the previous year to tax incomes uniformly throughout the United States2 was held by a divided court to be unconstitutional. A tax on incomes derived from property,3 the Court declared, was a "direct tax" which Congress under the terms of Article I, Sec. 2, and Sec. 9, could impose only by the rule of apportionment according to population, although scarcely fifteen years prior the Justices had unanimously sustained4 the collection of a similar tax during the Civil War,5 the only other occasion preceding the Sixteenth Amendment in which Congress had ventured to utilize this method of raising revenue.6
During the interim between the Pollock decision in 1895 and the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, the Court gave evidence of a greater awareness of the dangerous consequences to national solvency which that holding threatened, and partially circumvented the threat, either by taking refuge in redefinitions of "direct tax" or, and more especially, by emphasizing, virtually to the exclusion of the former, the history of excise taxation. Thus, in a series of cases, notably Nicol v. Ames,7 [p.1954]Knowlton v. Moore,8 and Patton v. Brady,9 the Court held the following taxes to have been levied merely upon one of the "incidents of ownership" and hence to be excises: a tax which involved affixing revenue stamps to memoranda evidencing the sale of merchandise on commodity exchanges, an inheritance tax, and a war revenue tax upon tobacco on which the hitherto imposed excise tax had already been paid and which was held by the manufacturer for resale.
Because of such endeavors the Court thus found it possible to sustain a corporate income tax as an excise "measured by income" on the privilege of doing business in corporate form.10 The adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, however, put an end to speculation whether the Court, unaided by constitutional amendment, would persist along these lines of construction until it had reversed its holding in the Pollock case. Indeed, in its initial appraisal11 of the Amendment it classified income taxes as being inherently "indirect." "[T]he command of the amendment that all income taxes shall not be subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the taxed income may be derived, forbids the application to such taxes of the rule applied in the Pollock case by which alone such taxes were removed from the great class of excises, duties, and imports subject to the rule of uniformity and were placed under the other or direct class."12 "[T]he Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged."13
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , Analysis and Interpretation: Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States
http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/amdt16_user.html#pg1953
And Bill Benson's ARGUMENT that "[e]ven if the 16th Amendment were properly ratified, according to Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, it has always been unconstitutional for the U.S. Federal Government to directly tax We the People in their property, wages, salaries, or earnings" is BS.
"We are told that the relation of employment is one so essential to the pursuit of happiness that it may not be burdened with a tax. Appeal is made to history. From the precedents of colonial days, we are supplied with [301 U.S. 548, 579] illustrations of excises common in the colonies. They are said to have been bound up with the enjoyment of particular commodities. Appeal is also made to principle or the analysis of concepts. An excise, we are told, imports a tax upon a privilege; employment, it is said, is a right, not a privilege, from which it follows that employment is not subject to an excise. Neither the one appeal nor the other leads to the desired goal.
As to the argument from history: Doubtless there were many excises in colonial days and later that were associated, more or less intimately, with the enjoyment or the use of property. This would not prove, even if no others were then known, that the forms then accepted were not subject to enlargement. Cf. Pensacola Teleg. Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U.S. 1 , 9; In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564, 591 , 15 S.Ct. 900; South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 , 449 S., 26 S.Ct. 110, 4 Ann.Cas. 737. But in truth other excises were known, and known since early times. Thus in 1695 (6 & 7 Wm. III, c. 6), Parliament passed an act which granted 'to His Majesty certain Rates and Duties upon Marriages, Births and Burials,' all for the purpose of 'carrying on the War against France with Vigour.' See Opinion of the Justices, 196 Mass. 603, 609, 85 N.E. 545, 547. No commodity was affected there. The industry of counsel has supplied us with an apter illustration where the tax was not different in substance from the one now challenged as invalid. In 1777, before our Constitutional Convention, Parliament laid upon employers an annual 'duty' of 21 shillings for 'every male Servant' employed in stated forms of work. 3 [301 U.S. 548, 580] Revenue Act of 1777, 17 George III, c. 39.4 The point is made as a distinction that a tax upon the use of male servants was thought of as a tax upon a luxury. Davis v. Boston & Maine R.R. Co., supra. It did not touch employments in husbandry or business. This is to throw over the argument that historically an excise is a tax upon the enjoyment of commodities. But the attempted distinction, whatever may be thought of its validity, is inapplicable to a statute of Virginia passed in 1780. There a tax of 3 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence was to be paid for every male tithable above the age of twenty-one years (with stated exceptions), and a like tax for 'every white servant whatsoever, except apprentices under the age of twenty one years.' 10 Hening's Statutes of Virginia , p. 244. Our colonial forbears knew more about ways of taxing than some of their descendants seem to be willing to concede. 5
The historical prop failing, the prop or fancied prop of principle remains. We learn that employment for lawful gain is a 'natural' or 'inherent' or 'inalienable' right, and not a 'privilege' at all. But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of less importance. 6 An excise is not limited to vocations or activities [301 U.S. 548, 581] that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right. What the individual does in the operation of a business is amenable to taxation just as much as what he owns, at all events if the classification is not tyrannical or arbitrary. 'Business is as legitimate an object of the taxing power as property.' City of Newton v. Atchison , 31 Kan. 151, 154, 1 P. 288, 290, 47 Am.Rep. 486 (per Brewer, J.). Indeed, ownership itself, as we had occasion to point out the other day, is only a bundle of rights and privileges invested with a single name. Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., Inc. (March 29, 1937) 300 U.S. 577 , 57 S.Ct. 524, 527. 'A state is at liberty, if it pleases, to tax them all collectively, or to separate the faggots and lay the charge distributively.' Id. Employment is a business relation, if not itself a business. It is a relation without which business could seldom be carried on effectively. The power to tax the activities and relations that constitute a calling considered as a unit is the power to tax any of them. The whole includes the parts. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249, 267 , 268 S., 53 S.Ct. 345, 349, 350, 87 A.L.R. 1191
CHAS. C. STEWARD MACH. CO. v. DAVIS , 301 U.S. 548 (1937)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/301/548.html
The BIGGEST PROBLEM that I see with Bill Benson's CLAIMS about the ALLEGED "defects" is that they are NOT based on the CONSTITUTION, but on the procedure used to ENROLL a BILL.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution specifies the ratification process, and requires 3/4 of the States to ratify any amendment proposed by Congress. There were 48 States in the American Union in 1913, meaning that affirmative action of 36 states was required for ratification. In February, 1913, Secretary of State Philander Knox issued a proclamation claiming that 38 states had ratified the amendment.
In 1984, William J. Benson began a research project, never before performed, to investigate the process of ratification of the 16th Amendment. After traveling to the capitols of the New England states, and reviewing the journals of the state legislative bodies, he saw that many states had not ratified the Amendment. Continuing his research at the National Archives in Washington , DC , Bill Benson discovered his Golden Key. This damning piece of evidence is a 16 page memorandum from the Solicitor of the Department of State, whose duty is the provision of legal opinions for the use of the Secretary of State. In this memorandum sent to the Secretary of State, the Solicitor of the Department of State lists the many errors he found in the ratification process!
...
When his year long project was finished at the end of 1984, Bill had visited every state capitol and knew that not a single state had actually and legally ratified the proposal to amend the Constitution. 33 states engaged in the unauthorized activity of amending the language of the amendment proposed by congress, a power the states do not possess. Since 36 states were needed for ratification, the failure of 13 to ratify would be fatal to the amendment, and this occurs within the major (first three) defects tabulated in Defects in Ratification of the 16th Amendment. Even if we were to ignore defects of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation, we would still have only 2 states which successfully ratified.
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/home.asp
The authority usually cited for the criticality of ratification without errors of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation, is from DOCUMENT NO. 97-120, of the 97TH CONGRESS, 1st Session, entitled How Our Laws Are Made, written by Edward F. Willett, Jr. Esq., Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives, in which the comparable exactitude in which bills must be concurred under federal legislative rules is detailed:...
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/ratification.asp
HOWEVER, the STATE LEGISLATURES were NOT writing a piece of legislation, but were VOTING YES or NO on ratifying a proposed AMENDMENT that would "be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures" of THIRTY-SIX of the FORTY-EIGHT existing STATES, so it appears to me that many of the SO-CALLED "defects of wording, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation" that Bill Benson identifies would be IRRELEVANT.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. Article. V. Constitution of the United States
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States .
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution:
"ARTICLE XVI. 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."
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/document_data/pdf/doc_057.pdf
That helps to explain WHY the U.S. SUPREME COURT said that RATIFICATION of an AMENDMENT is a POLITICAL QUESTION & that CONGRESS has the ULTIMATE AUTHORITY in deciding whether or not an AMENDMENT had been adopted.
"The legislatures of Georgia , North Carolina and South Carolina had rejected the amendment in November and December, 1866.16 New governments were erected in those States (and in others) under the direction of Congress. 17 The new legislatures ratified the amendment, that of North Carolina on July 4, 1868, that of South Carolina on July 9, 1868, and that of Georgia on July 21, 1868.18 Ohio and New Jersey first ratified and then passed resolutions withdrawing their consent. 19 As there were then thirty-seven States, twenty-eight were needed to constitute the requisite three-fourths. On July 9, 1868, the Congress adopted a resolution requesting the Secretary of State to communicate 'a list of the States of the Union whose legislatures have ratified the fourteenth article of amendment',20 and in Secretary Seward's report attention was called to the action of Ohio and New Jersey . 21 On July 20th Secretary Seward issued a proclamation reciting the ratification by twenty-eight States, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and New Jersey, and stating that it appeared that Ohio and New Jersey had since passed resolutions withdrawing their consent and that 'it is [307 U.S. 433, 449] deemed a matter of doubt and uncertainty whether such resolutions are not irregular, invalid and therefore ineffectual'. The Secretary certified that if the ratifying resolutions of Ohio and New Jersey were still in full force and effect, notwithstanding the attempted withdrawal, the amendment had become a part of the Constitution. 22 On the following day the Congress adopted a concurrent resolution which, reciting that three- fourths of the States having ratified (the list including North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and New Jersey),23 declared the Fourteenth Amendment to be a part of the Constitution and that it should be duly promulgated as such by the Secretary of State. Accordingly, Secretary Seward, on July 28th, issued his proclamation embracing the States mentioned in the congressional resolution and adding Georgia . 24
Thus the political departments of the Government dealt with the effect both of previous rejection and of attempted withdrawal and determined that both were ineffectual in the presence of an actual ratification. 25 While there were special circumstances, because of the action of the Congress in relation to the governments of the rejecting States (North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia), these circumstances were not recited in proclaiming ratification and the previous action taken in these States was set forth in the proclamation as actual previous rejections by the respective legislatures. This [307 U.S. 433, 450] decision by the political departments of the Government as to the validity of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment has been accepted.
We think that in accordance with this historic precedent the question of the efficacy of ratifications by state legislatures, in the light of previous rejection or attempted withdrawal, should be regarded as a political question pertaining to the political departments, with the ultimate authority in the Congress in the exercise of its control over the promulgation of the adoption of the amendment.
...
Article V, speaking solely of ratification, contains no provision as to rejection. 26 Nor has the Congress enacted a statute relating to rejections. The statutory provision with respect to constitutional amendments is as follows:
'Whenever official notice is received at the Department of State that any amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States has been adopted, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Secretary of State shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the States by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States'.27 [307 U.S. 433, 451] The statute presupposes official notice to the Secretary of State when a state legislature has adopted a resolution of ratification. We see no warrant for judicial interference with the performance of that duty. See Leser v. Garnett, supra, 258 U.S. at page 137, 42 S.Ct. at page 217."
COLEMAN v. MILLER, 307 U.S. 433 (1939)
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/307/433.html
According to Bill Benson, there were SEVEN "Not ratified by state legislature, and so reported" & THREE "Not ratified by state legislature, but reported as ratified", so only ten STATES (of the 48 then EXISTING states) actually VOTED NOT to RATIFY the amendment & in one form or WHILE 38 STATES did VOTE to RATIFY it.
01 - Not ratified by state legislature, and so reported
02 - Not ratified by state legislature, but reported as ratified
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/ratification.asp
And since Bill Bensons PREMISE that the federal income tax SUPPOSEDLY being based on the 16th Amendment is WRONG & it appears that his CONTENTIONS about the SUPPOSED "non-ratification" of the 16th Amendment are INCORRECT, is it really any surprise that everyone that has TRIED to use his "argument" has LOST?
"* 1. Thomas is a tax protester, and one of his arguments is that he did not need to file tax returns because the sixteenth amendment is not part of the constitution. It was not properly ratified, Thomas insists, repeating the argument of W. Benson & M. Beckman, The Law That Never Was (1985). Benson and Beckman review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the sixteenth amendment and conclude that only four states ratified the sixteenth amendment; they insist that the official promulgation of that amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void.
Benson and Beckman did not discover anything; they rediscovered something that Secretary Knox considered in 1913. Thirty-eight states ratified the sixteenth amendment, and thirty-seven sent formal instruments of ratification to the Secretary of State. (Minnesota notified the Secretary orally, and additional states ratified later; we consider only those Secretary Knox considered.) Only four instruments repeat the language of the sixteenth amendment exactly as Congress approved it. The others contain errors of diction, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The text Congress transmitted to the states was: "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." Many of the instruments neglected to capitalize "States," and some capitalized other words instead. The instrument from Illinois had "remuneration" in place of "enumeration"; the instrument from Missouri substituted "levy" for "lay"; the instrument from Washington had "income" not "incomes"; others made similar blunders.
Thomas insists that because the states did not approve exactly the same text, the amendment did not go into effect. Secretary Knox considered this argument. The Solicitor of the Department of State drew up a list of the errors in the instruments and--taking into account both the triviality of the deviations and the treatment of earlier amendments that had experienced more substantial problems--advised the Secretary that he was authorized to declare the amendment adopted. The Secretary did so.
Although Thomas urges us to take the view of several state courts that only agreement on the literal text may make a legal document effective, the Supreme Court follows the "enrolled bill rule." If a legislative document is authenticated in regular form by the appropriate officials, the court treats that document as properly adopted. Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 12 S.Ct. 495, 36 L.Ed. 294 (1892). The principle is equally applicable to constitutional amendments. See Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 42 S.Ct. 217, 66 L.Ed. 505 (1922), which treats as conclusive the declaration of the Secretary of State that the nineteenth amendment had been adopted. In United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d 457, 462-63 & n. 6 (7th Cir. 1986), we relied on Leser, as well as on the inconsequential nature of the objections in the face of the 73-year acceptance of the effectiveness of the sixteenth amendment, to reject a claim similar to Thomas's. See also Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939) (questions about ratification of amendments may be nonjusticiable). Secretary Knox declared that enough states had ratified the sixteenth amendment. The Secretary's decision is not transparently defective. We need not decide when, if ever, such a decision may be reviewed in order to know that Secretary Knox's decision is now beyond review."
US v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986)
http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/788/788.F2d.1250.85-2120.html
Patrick in California
Founder, ALLIANCE for PEACE & PROSPERITY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alliancepeaceprosperity/
"It ain't what ya don't know that hurts ya. What really puts a hurtin' on ya is what ya knows for sure, that just ain't so." -- Uncle Remus
