> The oath is specified in the U.S. Constitution, so you'd think it would be flub-proof -- especially when delivered by skilled lawyers in front of 2 million people on the Mall and trillions on television. It states: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
>
> It didn't go exactly that way.
Prepare for arguments along the following lines:
Is U.S. income tax invalid because Ohio wasn't legally a state when the 16th amendment was ratified? November 18, 1996
Dear Cecil:
Do Americans really have to pay income tax? I have been told the 16th Amendment, which authorized the income tax, is invalid because Ohio was not legally a state at the time of ratification. So far I haven't had the nerve to actually try this argument out on the IRS, but with Christmas coming I could use the extra cash. What do you think, Cecil, is it worth a shot?
— Tex R. Zister, Chicago
Dear Tex:
This is my absolute favorite anti-income-tax argument. Most claims that Americans aren't required to pay income tax rely on legal interpretations so tortured only a tax resister could possibly believe them. But the Ohio thing has just enough plausibility to give even sane people pause.
It all started when Ohio was preparing to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its admission to the Union in 1953. Researchers looking for the original statehood documents discovered there'd been a little oversight. While Congress had approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution, it had never passed a resolution formally admitting the future land of the Buckeyes. Technically, therefore, Ohio wasn't a state.
Predictably, when this came to light it was the subject of much merriment. One senator joshingly suggested that his colleagues from Ohio were drawing federal paychecks under false pretenses.
But Ohio congressman George Bender thought it was no laughing matter. He introduced a bill in Congress to admit Ohio to the Union retroactive to March 1, 1803. At a special session at the old state capital in Chillicothe, the Ohio state legislature approved a new petition for statehood that was delivered to Washington on horseback. Congress subsequently passed a joint resolution, and President Eisenhower, after a few more jokes, signed it on August 7, 1953.
But then the tax resisters got to work. They argued that since Ohio wasn't officially a state until 1953, its ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1911 was invalid, and thus Congress had no authority to enact an income tax.
Baloney, argued rational folk. Enough states voted for ratification even if you don't count Ohio.
OK, said the resisters, but the proposed amendment had been introduced to Congress by the administration of William H. Taft. Taft had been born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1857. The Constitution requires that presidents be natural-born citizens of the United States. Since Ohio wasn't a state in 1857, Taft wasn't a natural-born citizen, couldn't legally be president, and couldn't legally introduce the 16th Amendment. (Presumably one would also have problems with anything done by presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, B. Harrison, McKinley, and Harding, who were also born in Ohio.)
Get off it, the rationalists replied. The 1953 resolution retroactively admitted Ohio as of 1803, thereby rendering all subsequent events copacetic.
Uh-uh, said the resisters. The constitution says the Congress shall make no ex post facto law. That means no retroactive admissions to statehood.
Uh, we'll get back to you on that, said the rationalists.
[...]
-- Andy