1 Jan 1913 Jahr - 16th amendment

Beschreibung:

In his inaugural address, Wilson acknowledged that industrialization had precipitated a crisis. “There can be no equality of opportunity,” he said, “if men and women and children be not shielded … from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.” Wilson was a Democrat, and labor interests and farmers — some previously radicalized in the People’s Party — were important components of his base. In the South, many of those voters also upheld strong support for white supremacy. Despite northern African Americans’ support for Wilson, his administration did little for those constituents. But he undertook bold economic reforms.

Democrats believed workers needed stronger government to intervene on their behalf, and by 1912 they were transforming themselves into a modern, state-building party. The Wilson administration achieved a series of landmark measures — at least as significant as those enacted during earlier administrations, and perhaps more so (Table 19.1). The most enduring was the federal progressive income tax. “Progressive,” in this case, referred to the fact that it was not a flat tax but rose progressively toward the top of the income scale. The tax, passed in the 1890s but rejected by the Supreme Court, was reenacted as the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified by the states in February 1913. The next year, Congress used the new power to enact an income tax of 1 to 7 percent on Americans with annual incomes of $4,000 or more. At a time when a white male wageworker might expect to make $800 per year, the tax affected less than 5 percent of households.


Three years later, Congress followed this with an inheritance tax. These measures created an entirely new way to fund the federal government, replacing Republicans’ high tariff as the chief source of revenue. Over subsequent decades, especially between the 1930s and the 1970s, the income tax system markedly reduced America’s extremes of wealth and poverty.

Major Federal Progressive Measures, 1883–1921
Before 1900
Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)
Hatch Act (1887; Chapter 16)
Interstate Commerce Act (1887; Chapter 16)
Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
Federal income tax (1894; struck down by Supreme Court, 1895)
During Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency, 1901–1909
Newlands Reclamation Act for federal irrigation (1902)
Elkins Act (1903)
First National Wildlife Refuge (1903; Chapter 17)
Bureau of Corporations created to aid Justice Department antitrust work (1903)
U.S. Forest Service created (1905)
Antiquities Act (1906; Chapter 17)
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906; Chapter 18)
Hepburn Act (1906)
First White House Conference on Dependent Children (1909)
During William Howard Taft’s Presidency, 1909–1913
Mann Act preventing interstate prostitution (1910; Chapter 18)
Children’s Bureau created in the U.S. Labor Department (1912)
U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations appointed (1912)
During Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency, 1913–1920
Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution; federal income tax (1913)
Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution; direct election of U.S. senators (1913)
Federal Reserve Act (1913)
Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
Seamen’s Act (1915)
Workmen’s Compensation Act (1916)
Adamson Eight-Hour Act (1916)
National Park Service created (1916; Chapter 17)
Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution; prohibition of liquor (1920; Chapter 21)
Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution; women’s suffrage (1920; Chapter 20)

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