Page:Is Capital Income, Earle, 1921.djvu/15

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IS CAPITAL INCOME?
15

prevented had the eloquent pleas and admonition of Lord Chatham been followed; and, later, this very policy of liberal treatment having been applied to Canada and Australia, taught the lesson of splendid sacrifices which will be made by freemen, treated as freemen ever should be. Who is not, even at this day, thrilled by Lord Chatham's inspiring language, that so entirely accords with the principles of Chief Justice White and Mr. Justice Holmes, already adverted to: "I come not here armed at all points, with law cases and Acts of Parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the cause of Liberty. But * * * for the defense of Liberty, upon a general principle, upon a Constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm—on which I dare meet any man."

To a man forgetting what the genesis of the Supreme Court was, what mighty purpose of its creation was, it might appear that Mansfield was right. But to one remembering that Liberty was protected by the Constitution of Great Britain; that we are living under the dispensation of the Common Law defended by Chatham, not the technical servitude of Mansfield; that by our Constitution the Supreme Court has a higher office than that of mere judicial action; that it is, in fact, made by the Constitution the sworn and last defense of Freedom, the real value of the thought of Mr. Justice Holmes, as expressed in the Northern Securities case, and amplified by the Chief Justice in the Standard Oil case, compels its due appreciation.

We are thus brought to the vital inquiry; What, then, is the "genesis" of the important clauses of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, of the Constitution? What was it that led the Founders unanimously to insist upon the adoption of these clauses as part of the Constitution?