After various amendments, the bill was finally taken into a new draft, leaving the questions presented in the Bingham Amendment to the determination of the State Constitution, and in this form passed both Houses without a division. INCOME TAX. REMARKS IN THE SENATE, APRIL 7, 1870. The Senate having under consideration a Joint Resolution from the House, with an amendment by the Committee on Finance, declaratory of the meaning and intention of the law relating to the Income Tax, Mr. Sumner said,-- I shall make no opposition to the amendment of the Committee on Finance, as I understand it is to relieve the Department from a difficulty which has arisen in the interpretation of a statute; but I desire to say now--and I take this earliest opportunity--that I think the income tax ought not to be continued any longer. MR. CONKLING [of New York]. Reëstablished, you mean. MR. SUMNER. Very well; I accept the amendment of the Senator from New York: it ought not to be reëstablished. MR. SCOTT [of Pennsylvania]. It has expired. MR. SUMNER. It has expired. There was an understanding, when it was established, that it should live only into the year 1870. It has now reached its natural death, and no resurrection ought to operate upon it. An income tax is a war tax. It ought not to be made a peace tax. “The medicine of the Constitution should not become its daily bread.” I am against the continuance of this tax; and if the occasion required, I would go forward and assign reasons. But I am unwilling now to enter into any general discussion of the question, as it is not directly presented by the proposition before the Senate; but I hope the Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN], who has charge of this bill, and is Chairman of the Finance Committee, will bear in mind the radical objection to any reëstablishment of this tax, and will also bear in mind another important proposition,--that the taxes of the country must be reduced. I have on another occasion, and more than once, said, “Down with the taxes!”--and I repeat the cry now. We cannot do better than to begin with a tax inequitable in its operation, and which, according to the original understanding when first adopted, was to end now. After further debate, in which different Senators participated, Mr. Sumner spoke again, as follows:--