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7 Pitt. Tax Rev. 1 (2009-2010)
A Law with a Life of Its Own: The Development of the Federal Income Tax Statutes through World War I

handle is hein.journals/pittax7 and id is 3 raw text is: ARTICLES A LAW WITH A LIFE OF ITS OWN: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX STATUTES THROUGH WORLD WAR I Stephanie Hunter MeMahon* In a debate over the income tax in 1864, Justin Morrill (R-Vt.) protested that the tax's graduated rate structure made it no less than a confiscation of property.' Three years earlier, however, he had been one of the staunchest congressional supporters of the first federal income tax, a flat-rate tax enacted as part of the Revenue Act of 1861.2 Morrill was not the last member of Congress to learn that by adopting even a limited tax, Congress had opened the door to consideration of a much larger range of tax policies. Indeed, when Congress enacted a limited income tax in 1861, it began a fifty-year-long debate culminating in a revenue system built on the principle of taxing the * Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati College of Law. Thanks to Ajay Mehrotra, Joe Thorndike, Guy Alchon, David Cay Johnston, the participants of the 2008 Policy History Conference and the 2008 National Tax Association Conference, and the faculty and students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who have generously commented on drafts of this article. 1. CoNG. GLOBE, 38th Cong., 1st Sess. 1876 (1864). 2. Now, I should be perfectly willing to have an income tax levied. I believe it would be the most just and equitable. CONG. GLOBE, 37th Cong., 1st Sess. 272 (1861); see also Senator Morrill's comments infra notes 42 and 65.

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