ABSTRACT
The federal income tax amendment was proposed by the Sixty-first Congress in 1909 during one of the most contentious and significant special sessions in the history of the national Legislature. The amendment itself was the result of a political compromise emerging out of a four way struggle among Congressional Democrats, Regular and Insurgent Republicans, and the Taft Administration, each of which was forced to alter its position on the income tax issue as the shifting sands of legislative politics reshaped the terrain. Arguing that a constitutional amendment was impossible because a three percent minority could prevent ratification, Hull proposed to duplicate the 1894 tax section except for exempting the income from state and municipal bonds. The abstensions were almost evenly divided between other Regulars unwilling to carry their displeasure quite that far and Democrats who wanted to dramatize their belief that an amendment was not necessary.
