On Sep 27, 6:54*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:
Check this out;

Ever wonder why we didn't have income taxes before 1913?

Uh, we did.

No we didn't.

The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States
Constitution allows the Congress to levy an income tax. That was
passed at the same time as the Federal Reserve 1913.

Before that time Congress didn't do collect unapportioned taxes in
peace time. It merely spent money into existence.

In war time Congress had to spend more money than the growth of the
economy could absorb. So, to avoid inflation during the Civil War
Congress introduced the Revenue Act of 1861. It levied a flat tax of
3% on annual incomes above $800.

This act was replaced the following year with the Revenue Act of 1862,
which levied a graduated tax of 3–5% on income above $600. It also
specified a termination in 1866.

We didn't have income taxes before 1913 because before 1913 the USA
issued debt free currency as a sovereign state - and spent that money
into existence and then raised sufficient tax to keep the money in
circulation of stable value.

That's how Lincoln paid for the Civil War, and why the USA accumulated
so much wealth and grew so rapidly from the Civil War through 1913
despite millions of people coming to America during this period.

Gee, and here I thought that the first income tax was enacted in 1862
to pay for the Civil War and THAT is how they did it.

No. The money was printed and spent into existence without incurring
debt. The Revenue Act proves my point. It was an emergency measure
to keep the money Congress spent to prosecute the war from inflating
during the excessive demands of money from the war. It ended when the
war ended.



remaining Mookery of the facts removed unread

shrug If you read them maybe you'd learn something that you weren't
indoctrinated with and begin thinking for yourself. Your choice.



--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
*truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *-- Thomas Jefferson


This quote is taken out of context. People should know that. In this
quote Jefferson was writing about Limestone in the State of Virginia
and commenting on Voltaire's theories of how Limestone came to have
the configuration found in the State of Virginia. The quote isn't
about life or philosophy of truth or anything and shouldn't be taken
that way.

With that in mind, I regard Freddies misquotation as a crude attempt
at psyop - trying to suggest the founding fathers embraced ignorance
as a general way of life.

They didn't. Jefferson was merely saying he thought Voltaire's
theories about Limestone formation in the State of Virginia were not
quite right.

Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1783) was a book written by
Thomas Jefferson. Originally written in 1781, it was subsequently
updated and enlarged in 1782-83 and anonymously published in Paris in
1784.

It was the only book by Jefferson published during his lifetime. It
was written in order to answer questions posed to Jefferson about
Virginia by François Barbé-Marbois then the Secretary of the French
Legation in Philadelphia who mentioned Voltaire's theories to him and
to which he responded.

Here's the entire quote;

Limestone

But one vein of lime-stone is known below the Blue ridge. Its first
appearance, in our country, is in Prince William, two miles below the
Pignut ridge of mountains; thence it passes on nearly parallel with
that, and crosses the Rivanna about five miles below it, where it is
called the South-west ridge. It then crosses Hardware, above the mouth
of Hudson's creek, James river at the mouth of Rockfish, at the marble
quarry before spoken of, probably runs up that river to where it
appears again at Ross's iron-works, and so passes off south-westwardly
by Flat creek of Otter river. It is never more than one hundred yards
wide. From the Blue ridge westwardly the whole country seems to be
founded on a rock of lime-stone, besides infinite quantities on the
surface, both loose and fixed. This is cut into beds, which range, as
the mountains and sea-coast do, from south-west to north-east, the
lamina of each bed declining from the horizon towards a parallelism
with the axis of the earth. Being struck with this observation, I
made, with a quadrant, a great number of trials on the angles of their
declination, and found them to vary from 22 degrees to 60 degrees but
averaging all my trials, the result was within one-third of a degree
of the elevation of the pole or latitude of the place, and much the
greatest part of them taken separately were little different from
that: by which it appears, that these lamina are, in the main,
parallel with the axis of the earth. In some instances, indeed, I
found them perpendicular, and even reclining the other way: but these
were extremely rare, and always attended with signs of convulsion, or
other circumstances of singularity, which admitted a possibility of
removal from their original position. These trials were made between
Madison's cave and the Patowmac. We hear of lime-stone on the
Missisipi and Ohio, and in all the mountainous country between the
eastern and western waters, not on the mountains themselves, but
occupying the vallies between them.

Near the eastern foot of the North mountain are immense bodies of
_Schist_, containing impressions of shells in a variety of forms. I
have received petrified shells of very different kinds from the first
sources of the Kentucky, which bear no resemblance to any I have ever
seen on the tide-waters. It is said that shells are found in the
Andes, in South-America, fifteen thousand feet above the level of the
ocean. This is considered by many, both of the learned and unlearned,
as a proof of an universal deluge. To the many considerations opposing
this opinion, the following may be added. The atmosphere, and all its
contents, whether of water, air, or other matters, gravitate to the
earth; that is to say, they have weight. Experience tells us, that the
weight of all these together never exceeds that of a column of mercury
of 31 inches height, which is equal to one of rain-water of 35 feet
high. If the whole contents of the atmosphere then were water, instead
of what they are, it would cover the globe but 35 feet deep; but as
these waters, as they fell, would run into the seas, the superficial
measure of which is to that of the dry parts of the globe as two to
one, the seas would be raised only 52 1/2 feet above their present
level, and of course would overflow the lands to that height only. In
Virginia this would be a very small proportion even of the champaign
country, the banks of our tide-waters being frequently, if not
generally, of a greater height. Deluges beyond this extent then, as
for instance, to the North mountain or to Kentucky, seem out of the
laws of nature. But within it they may have taken place to a greater
or less degree, in proportion to the combination of natural causes
which may be supposed to have produced them. History renders probable
some instances of a partial deluge in the country lying round the
Mediterranean sea. It has been often (* 1) supposed, and is not
unlikely, that that sea was once a lake. While such, let us admit an
extraordinary collection of the waters of the atmosphere from the
other parts of the globe to have been discharged over that and the
countries whose waters run into it. Or without supposing it a lake,
admit such an extraordinary collection of the waters of the
atmosphere, and an influx of waters from the Atlantic ocean, forced by
long continued Western winds. That lake, or that sea, may thus have
been so raised as to overflow the low lands adjacent to it, as those
of Egypt and Armenia, which, according to a tradition of the Egyptians
and Hebrews, were overflowed about 2300 years before the Christian
aera; those of Attica, said to have been overflowed in the time of
Ogyges, about 500 years later; and those of Thessaly, in the time of
Deucalion, still 300 years posterior. But such deluges as these will
not account for the shells found in the higher lands. A second opinion
has been entertained, which is, that, in times anterior to the records
either of history or tradition, the bed of the ocean, the principal
residence of the shelled tribe, has, by some great convulsion of
nature, been heaved to the heights at which we now find shells and
other remains of marine animals. The favourers of this opinion do well
to suppose the great events on which it rests to have taken place
beyond all the aeras of history; for within these, certainly none such
are to be found: and we may venture to say further, that no fact has
taken place, either in our own days, or in the thousands of years
recorded in history, which proves the existence of any natural agents,
within or without the bowels of the earth, of force sufficient to
heave, to the height of 15,000 feet, such masses as the Andes. The
difference between the power necessary to produce such an effect, and
that which shuffled together the different parts of Calabria in our
days, is so immense, that, from the existence of the latter we are not
authorised to infer that of the former.

M. de Voltaire has suggested a third solution of this difficulty
(Quest. encycl. Coquilles). He cites an instance in Touraine, where,
in the space of 80 years, a particular spot of earth had been twice
metamorphosed into soft stone, which had become hard when employed in
building. In this stone shells of various kinds were produced,
discoverable at first only with the microscope, but afterwards growing
with the stone. From this fact, I suppose, he would have us infer,
that, besides the usual process for generating shells by the
elaboration of earth and water in animal vessels, nature may have
provided an equivalent operation, by passing the same materials
through the pores of calcareous earths and stones: as we see
calcareous dropstones generating every day by the percolation of water
through lime-stone, and new marble forming in the quarries from which
the old has been taken out; and it might be asked, whether it is more
difficult for nature to shoot the calcareous juice into the form of a
shell, than other juices into the forms of chrystals, plants, animals,
according to the construction of the vessels through which they pass?
There is a wonder somewhere. Is it greatest on this branch of the
dilemma; on that which supposes the existence of a power, of which we
have no evidence in any other case; or on the first, which requires us
to believe the creation of a body of water, and its subsequent
annihilation? The establishment of the instance, cited by M. de
Voltaire, of the growth of shells unattached to animal bodies, would
have been that of his theory. But he has not established it. He has
not even left it on ground so respectable as to have rendered it an
object of enquiry to the literati of his own country. Abandoning this
fact, therefore, the three hypotheses are equally unsatisfactory; and
we must be contented to acknowledge, that this great phaenomenon is as
yet unsolved. Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote
from the truth who believes nothing, then he who believes what is
wrong.