Scott v. Comptroller of Treasury

CATHELL, Judge. Appellant, Dolores E. Scott, appearing before this Court pro se, appeals from the judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, which affirmed the judgment of the Maryland Tax Court. The Tax Court had previously affirmed an assessment that the Comptroller of the Treasury, Income Tax ²¹⁸ Division, appellee, imposed upon appellant. The question, as rephrased by appellee and by us, is: Is Appellant exempt from state income tax? 1 FACTS Appellant failed to file a Maryland state income tax return for the 1991 tax year.

Appellee assessed her the sum of $1,509.08 inclusive of tax, interest, and penalty based on the information available to appellee, including the amount of tax withheld as indicated on her W-2 forms. Appellant does not allege any computational error in the calculation of the assessment. Rather, appellant contends that, because of her status as an individual of African origin, coupled with the Bred Scott decision, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the invalidity of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, she is not a citizen of the United States. 2 She also indicates that African Americans are entitled to reparations from the United States government and the failure of the federal government to make these reparations provides her an additional reason to be exempt from Maryland taxes. 3 ²¹⁹ ANALYSIS Appellant contends that she is not a United States citizen because of the Dred Scott case, Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 , 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857), which “has never been reversed,” and because her African ancestors did not vote to adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, which she claims improperly confers citizenship upon African Americans. She claims that this entitles her to tax exempt status -with respect to both federal and state income taxes. 4 THE DRED SCOTT DECISION Despite the fact that the United States Supreme Court has never expressly overturned the Dred Scott case, the decision is no longer law in light of the adoption of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865 and 1868, respectively.

Moreover, even if the Dred Scott decision had not been overturned by Constitutional amendment, her reliance thereon for the proposition that she could not be a Maryland citizen, and is, thus, exempt from Maryland taxes, is not supported by that case. While the Supreme Court in Scott did hold that those of African descent were not citizens of the United States, it did not hold that they could not be citizens of the state in which they resided. In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States.

He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other ²²⁰ State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights.... Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Id. at 405.

Shortly after the Scott decision, the Maryland Court of Appeals commented upon the status of those of African decent who were free and had long enjoyed the voting franchise and other limited rights of citizenship even before the Civil War. 5 In Hughes v. Jackson, 12 Md. 450, 463-64 (1858), the Court stated: From the earliest history of the colony, free negroes have been allowed to sue in our courts and to hold property, both real and personal, and at one time, they, having the necessary qualifications, were permitted to exercise the elective franchise. The Court, in holding that “the presumption of slavery arising from color” does not apply in every case, noted that there were “but two cases in which, in a court of law in this State, a negro suffers a disqualification because of the presumption arising from his color,” id. at 462-63: when he was “adduced as a witness in a case in which any white person is interested,” he was incompetent to testify, and, when the issue involved his freedom, he had the burden of proof. Id. at 463 . The first of these disqualifications would indicate that a difference in treatment between whites and free descendants of Africans existed at that time and affords some support to counsel’s argument in that 1858 case that, “[i]f he be free he is still not a citizen nor is he an alien.

He occupies an anomalous position, having more rights than a stranger, yet not the same ²²¹ as an heir.” Id. at 459 (argument of counsel). Even assuming that to be true in 1858, there is still nothing in the Scott decision preventing Maryland from awarding citizenship to descendants of Africans. THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT The Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution provides, in pertinent part, that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It was proposed by two-thirds of each Congressional house and was ratified by three-fourths of the State Legislatures, thus satisfying the requirements for amending the Constitution as provided for in Article V. 6 Appellant’s expressed concern with the Fourteenth Amendment arises out of her contention that African Americans had essentially no say in the passage of that Amendment and, further, she believes, that the main purpose of the act was to subject descendants of Africans to income tax. 7 As to her position that the exclusion of African Americans from the debates preceding the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment results in non-citizen status for them, appellant does not explicitly state what she believes is required to pass a constitutional amendment that affects a group of people who have little or no power in the political process at a particular time. Presumably, a referendum of all those to be affected, or some other similar procedural requirement, prior to the commencement of the debates on proposed amendments, might ²²² satisfy appellant.

We reject, however, any notion that such an extra constitutional procedure is required in order to ratify an Amendment. If such a procedure were required, the validity of the Thirteenth (abolishing slavery), Fifteenth (abolishing race as a condition to vote), and Nineteenth (abolishing gender as a condition to vote) Amendments would all be void. Were appellant to be right, slavery itself could be, as far as the Constitution is concerned, reinstated. We do not believe that appellant is herself seeking that result.

While it would appear to be constitutionally permissible to use a referendum to measure public opinion concerning a proposed Amendment, see Spriggs v. Clark, 45 Wyo. 62, 14 P.2d 667, 669 (1932) (holding that a referendum was permissible “to supply the political body whose duty it is to initiate proceedings to change the National Charter with reliable information concerning the attitude of the people”), as we have indicated, it is not required. Indeed, a State imposed mandatory referendum would not even be constitutional. See Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221, 227, 40 S.Ct. 495, 497 , 64 L.Ed. 871 (1920). Appellant’s arguments appear to be borrowed from a document, found in the Extract, entitled “Black Reparations Now!

Solutions to the Crisis in Democracy & Black Survival in the USA.” The writer states: Although the 13th Amendment set no restrictions on the freedom of former slaves, the 14th Amendment, passed several years later, robbed Africans of some of their hard won freedom. Citizenship was imposed upon Africans without their consent, without a vote, without any discussion of political alternatives. No payment was made for labor or damages. During Reconstruction, politicians made the campaign promise of “forty acres and a mule” to every freed African.

A bill providing for Forty Acres and a Mule, a form of reparations, passed both houses of Congress only to be vetoed by then President Andrew Johnson. ²²³ While the article may be of some interest, it does not—nor does it claim to-assert any other Constitutional adoption procedure in relation to the passage of Amendments. As we have said, Article V sets forth the procedural requirements that must be satisfied in order to ratify an amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in accordance with this procedure. Indeed, appellant does not contend that it was not.

Appellant’s other concern with the Fourteenth Amendment appears to be her belief that the reason for its ratification was to subject descendants of Africans to income taxation. Appellant states in her notice of appeal: Referring back to the 14th Amendment—when America no longer had Africans in bondage for the purpose of providing free labor, an amendment was added to the Constitution illegally including Africans in America as citizens of the United States. Europeans could then impose taxation upon Africans in America because of conditional U.S. citizenship. Africans in America were then forced to pay income taxes even in spite of low wages, and in spite of lack of protection supposedly provided by the 14th Amendment.

We note that there was an income tax in effect at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. This was for the purpose of generating revenue to pay off the debt the federal government generated during the Civil War. This tax initially survived a constitutional challenge. See Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 , 26 L.Ed. 253 (1881).

The Supreme Court later, however, declared an income tax unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429 , 15 S.Ct. 673 , 39 L.Ed. 759 (1895). 8 The Pollock decision itself, however, was later negated by the enactment of the Sixteenth ²²⁴ Amendment, which was ratified in 1913. 9 The Sixteenth Amendment expressly authorized an income tax. We, thus, find this particular contention to be without merit. Furthermore, we note that, other than her bald assertion that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to subject African Americans to an income tax, there was no . evidence presented that this was the case. In fact, we hold that, contrary to appellant’s assertion, one of the primary purposes behind the enactment of the Civil War Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments) was to free slaves, enfranchise them, and benefit and protect the African Americans.

Moreover, even if appellant could produce some evidence, credible or otherwise, to support her contention as to the reasons for the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, it should be noted that no Constitutional Amendment has ever been declared invalid. 10 Indeed, if properly adopted and ratified, it is difficult to perceive of any likely circumstances in which such a change in the foundation of a constitutional