George Sutherland

“ Congress, in passing the legislation here under consideration, is not forbidden to balance these respective probabilities. The tax itself, it is said, was imposed for the purpose of protecting certain industries in this country; and it is challenged on that ground. That Congress has power to levy a tax with the collateral purpose of thereby protecting the industries of the United States is no longer open to doubt. ”

“ Payments to individuals, not of right, or of a merely legal claim, but payments in the nature of a gratuity, yet having some feature of moral obligation to support them, have been made by the government, by virtue of acts of congress appropriating the public money, ever since its foundation. ”

“ It is said to be bad because it is earmarked and devoted from its inception to a specific purpose. But if the tax, qua tax, be good, as we hold it is, and the purpose specified be one which would sustain a subsequent and separate appropriation made out of the general funds of the Treasury, neither is made invalid by being bound to the other in the same act of legislation. The only concern which we have in that aspect of the matter is to determine whether the purpose specified is one for which Congress can make an appropriation without violating the fundamental law. ”

“ The existence and character of the consequent obligations and the extent of the relief, if any, which should be afforded by the United States in respect of them, are matters, not for judicial but for congressional consideration and determination.
It is not improbable that a failure to exercise control over imports from the Philippines would injuriously affect the industries of this country; and, on the other hand, an exercise of the power to tax imports might prove injurious to the people of the islands. ”

“ The Philippine Islands and their inhabitants, from the beginning of our occupation, have borne a peculiar relation to the United States. The Islands constitute a dependency over which the United States, for more than a generation, has had and exercised supreme power of legislation and administration, Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U.S. 497, 502, 56 S.Ct. 349, 351, 80 L.Ed. 351, a power limited only by the terms of the treaty of cession and those principles of the Constitution which by their nature are inherently inviolable. ”

“ A state, except as the federal Constitution otherwise requires, is supreme and independent. It has its own government, with full powers of taxation and full power to appropriate the revenues derived therefrom. ”

“ The contention that there has been no constitutional appropriation, or that any attempted appropriation is bad, because the particular uses to which the appropriated money are to be put have not been specified, is without merit. ”

“ The power of congress extends, at least, as far as the recognition and payment of claims against the government which are thus founded. To no other branch of the government than congress could any application be successfully made, on the part of the owners of such claims or debts, for the payment thereof. ”

“ Among these correlative duties is the moral obligation to protect, defend, and provide for the general welfare of, the inhabitants. And such an obligation well may require the appropriation and expenditure of money from the national purse-in which case the obligation fairly comes within the term 'debts' as used in the taxing clause. ”

“ A striking and pertinent example is afforded by the Act of June 17, 1902, c. 1093, 32 Stat. 388, where all moneys received from the sale and disposal of public lands in a large number of states and territories are set aside as a special fund to be expended for the reclamation of arid and semi-arid lands within those states and territories. ”