Quote from ratboy88:
if you really want to have some fun then research the ratification of this amendment... here's a hint.. start with Kentucky.
I reread the thread, here's what you were referring to regarding the 16th :
And the rebuttal :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_constitutional_arguments
One argument that has been raised several times (and always ruled meritless) suggests that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. This argument is based on the fact that the legislatures of various states passed ratifying resolutions in which the quoted text of the Amendment differed from the text proposed by Congress in terms of capitalization, spelling of words, or punctuation marks (e.g. semi-colons instead of commas).
The earliest reported court case where this argument was raised appears to be United States v. House,[1] about seventy-two years after the ratification. The best-known proponent of the non-ratification claim is William J. Benson, co-author of the book The Law That Never Was (1985), who testified in the House case to no avail. The Benson contention was comprehensively addressed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Thomas:[2]
Thomas is a tax protester, and one of his arguments is that he did not need to file tax returns because the sixteenth amendment is not part of the constitution. It was not properly ratified, Thomas insists, repeating the argument of W. Benson & M. Beckman, The Law That Never Was (1985). Benson and Beckman review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the sixteenth amendment and conclude that only four states ratified the sixteenth amendment; they insist that the official promulgation of that amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void.
Benson and Beckman did not discover anything; they rediscovered something that Secretary Knox considered in 1913. Thirty-eight states ratified the sixteenth amendment, and thirty-seven sent formal instruments of ratification to the Secretary of State. (Minnesota notified the Secretary orally, and additional states ratified later; we consider only those Secretary Knox considered.[3]) Only four instruments repeat the language of the sixteenth amendment exactly as Congress approved it. The others contain errors of diction, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The text Congress transmitted to the states was: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." Many of the instruments neglected to capitalize "States," and some capitalized other words instead. The instrument from Illinois had "remuneration" in place of "enumeration"; the instrument from Missouri substituted "levy" for "lay"; the instrument from Washington had "income" not "incomes"; others made similar blunders.
Thomas insists that because the states did not approve exactly the same text, the amendment did not go into effect. Secretary Knox considered this argument. The Solicitor of the Department of State drew up a list of the errors in the instruments and â taking into account both the triviality of the deviations and the treatment of earlier amendments that had experienced more substantial problems â advised the Secretary that he was authorized to declare the amendment adopted. The Secretary did so.
