The Recent Constitutional Amendments

Abstract

The present year has witnessed the incorporation in our National Constitution of two important changes to be known respectively as the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments;- the one, proclaimed by the Secretary of State as formally adopted February 25, 1913, empowers Congress to lay a direct tax in the nature of an income tax irrespective of the source whence such income may be drawn, and freed, too, from any necessity of apportionment among the several states in conformity to their population; the other, proclaimed May 31, 1913, transfers the choice of senators from state legislatures directly to the voters. As in the instance of the adoption in 1798 of the Eleventh Amendment, a constitutional interpretation rendered by the Supreme Court has furnished the impulse leading to the adoption of the Sixteenth. The Seventeenth Amendment, however,---a change long-desired by many-draws its inspiration from widely-differing sources and is fraught with far deeper constitutional significance. Here we have our second national legislative chamber brought to rest directly on the will of the citizen-body, and thus, bearing in mind that the National Executive is now practically although not constitutionally chosen by popular vote, our plan of government is seen to be divested of that element of official guardianship deemed essential when in 1787, it was sought to interpose local legislators or Federal electors between the people at large and those who should be selected to administer their government. Time, however, has effectualy demonstrated the peril or ineffectiveness of such intermediates, nor is the spirit of modern self-government easily tolerant, as may be gathered from recent discussions in the British and French parliaments, of legislators whose immediate choice is not confided to the hands of those for whose benefit it is supposed to have been made.