constitutional-law us-constitution
Contradictions in the Constitution regarding property rights?
<p>In the fifth Amendment :</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; <strong>nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.</strong></p>
</blockquote>

<p>In The Taxing and Spending Clause Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, it states:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; </p>
</blockquote>

<p>As far as I know, money, diverse as its forms may be, is considered property in most if not all of the cultures. How do you "just"-ly compensate for the tax you have collected? A free lance programmer for example, can make as much as 5 mechanics while staying at home where as the 5 mechanics use roads, bridges and various other infrastructure on a daily basis. Even in the 18th century, it would be an extremely deviant and extraordinary claim that one will be "just"-ly compensated for his tax paid.</p>

<p>Did the founding fathers grow weary of their undertakings and decided to forsake due diligence and instead, wager on the possibility that no dangerous amount of people will invest their time on the fault finding in the future? If that were the case, they most certainly were right.</p>

<p>Is this a contradiction? If it is, what should we make of it? Repair it? Ignore it until it blows up like what we always do? </p>

<p>The historical record on the question is probably too thin to yield a well-supported answer as to the due diligence and the underlying "what were they thinking" question, that is, I doubt there is any record of any original debate where one side demands resolution of the contradiction, and how that charge was answered.</p>

<p><a href="http://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QaeFgzdRr8lDqCCkKLeqRJsOjfJhWl_HYHeE-iI-L_4PBvTmOsZ3zFKqaDDgDVFr53dGNnfOM1B5OmWX367Dg9i6sVTb1Y7qlxwZcw4ejI9JKfmt2vREGf9LSwvWKB9u7yA6pAksHEMlZhnzdu39edUnezqs2OgNFR-1IOdyNVe5GtCVAyNNO2oeSXOQw8FrewIrtW_Fvmc5vXyUXGDWw0Xus6Md4TtkoA_A3BANUoVsn0W0dGcRAjLVOeYb1EPrYzcrxgx3Y6ydRbAmfCbygb6uYMYC_w" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The American Law of Taxation: As Determined in the Courts of Last Resort</a> gives a summary of the ensuing case law relationship between taxation and compensation, as of 1884 (p. 31 of the book, p. 100 in the PDF):</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Taxation differs from the power of eminent domain in this: that <em>it has
  no thought of compensation</em> by way of return for that which it takes
  and applies to the public good, further than all derive benefit from
  the purposes to which it is applied; in other words, that the support
  of government and other objects of public utility promoted by taxation
  are supposed to return to the individual the same which has been taken
  from him, as his share of the public burden</p>
</blockquote>

<p>and</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The limitation in the constitution that private property shall not be
  taken for public use, refers solely to the right of eminent domain,
  and not to taxation or special assessments for local benefits.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>(both quotes with long lists of supporting state law citations). The New York case <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3637440/the-people-v-mayor-c-of-brooklyn/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">People v. Mayor of Brooklyn</a>, 4 N.Y. 419 apparently overturned its prior ruling (I think the citation is 6 Barb. 214, which I can't track down), commenting on the earlier ruling on an assessment.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The supreme court reversed and annulled the assessment, holding...</p>
  
  <p>That <em>money is property; that it can not be taken from a
  citizen for public use by the right of eminent domain, without just
  compensation</em>; and that the enhancement in value of the relators'
  lands, by the grading and paving of Flushing avenue, is not that just
  compensation within the meaning of the constitution.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The later court gets out of this, noting that</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Taxation exacts money, or services, from individuals, as and for their
  respective shares of contribution to any public burden. Private
  property taken for public use by right of eminent domain, is taken not
  as the owner's share of contribution to a public burden, but as so
  much beyond his share. Special compensation is therefore to be made in
  the latter case, because the government is a debtor for the property
  so taken; but not in the former, because the payment of taxes is a
  duty and creates no obligation to repay, otherwise than in the proper
  application of the tax.</p>
  
  <p>Taxation operates upon a community or upon a class of persons in a
  community and by some rule of apportionment. The exercise of the right
  of eminent domain operates upon an individual, and without reference
  to the amount, or value exacted from any other individual, or class of
  individuals.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In other words, the Takings and Just Compensation clauses are understood to be about the power of eminent domain, which specially burdens the individual, and that is distinct from the general burdening of society that is taxation.</p>

<p>There are, as far as I know, no finely-tuned SCOTUS rulings on the relation between the Just Compensation clause and the tax and spend clause. There is case law that holds that there is no contradiction between the power to tax and the Fifth Amendment. For example <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/195/27/case.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">McCray v. US</a>, 195 U.S. 27:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>While both the Fifth and Tenth Amendments qualify, insofar as they are
  applicable, all the provisions of the Constitution, nothing in either
  of them operates to take away the grant of power to tax conferred by
  the Constitution upon Congress, and that power being unrestrained
  except as limited by the Constitution, Congress may select the objects
  upon which the tax shall be levied, and, in exerting the power, <em>no
  want of due process of law can possibly result</em>, and the judiciary
  cannot usurp the functions of the legislature in order to control that
  branch of the Government in exercising its lawful functions.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/240/1/case.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Brushaber v. Union Pacific</a>, 240 U.S. 1:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>So far as the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment is relied
  upon, it suffices to say that there is no basis for such reliance,
  since it is equally well settled that such clause is not a limitation
  upon the taxing power conferred upon Congress by the Constitution; in
  other words, that <em>the Constitution does not conflict with itself by
  conferring, upon the one hand, a taxing power, and taking the same
  power away, on the other, by the limitations of the due process
  clause</em>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This however says that taxation laws do not violate the due process requirement.</p>

<p>It should be pointed out that as originally drafted, Income Tax in the United States was originally very difficult to impose in the United States.  The first income tax was created to support the prosecution of the Civil War in 1861 and the Tax was repealed in 1872.   The next implementation of an income tax was in 1894 and imposed the first peacetime income tax in the  Wilson-Gorman tariff act.  In 1895 a monkey wrench was thrown into the tax law when SCOTUS ruled in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan &amp; Trust Co. that  Wilson-Gorman was unconstitutionally implemented and that congress needed to divid the tax evenly among the states based on population.   Pollock didn't rule that income tax was unconstitutional out right, but did make it a logisitical nightmare for the government to actually implement.</p>
<p>The solution to this was the 1906 ratification of the 16th amendment which exempted income tax from Article I section 8 restrictions (Constitutional Amendments are one of the few ways to overturn a SCOTUS decision and all Amendments that change the powers of Federal Government always assume the more recent amendment on the matter to overturn previous contradicting amendments.</p>
