The introduction of the passions of a social conflict into what purported to be a legal contest was intrusted to Mr. Choate. He threatened the Court with the declaration that if it approved the law, and "the communistic march" went on, a still higher exemption of $20,000 might be made and a rate of 20 per cent imposed--a highly important statement, but one that had no connection with the question whether an income tax was a direct tax. "There is protection now or never," he exclaimed. The very keystone of civilization, he continued, was the preservation of the rights of private property, and this fundamental principle was scattered to the winds by the champions of the tax. Mr. Choate concluded by warning the Court not to pay any attention to the popular passions enlisted on the side of the law, and urged it not to hesitate in declaring the law unconstitutional, "no matter what the threatened consequences of popular or populistic wrath may be." The Court was evidently moved by the declamation of Mr. Choate, for Justice Field, in his opinion, replied in kind. "The present assault upon capital," he said, "is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping stone to others larger and more sweeping till our political conditions will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war growing in intensity and bitterness." If such a law were upheld, he gravely announced, boards of walking delegates would be fixing tax rates in the near future. Mr. Justice Harlan, in his dissenting opinion, however, replied in behalf of the populace by saying: "The practical effect of the decision to-day is to give certain kinds of property a position of favoritism and advantage inconsistent with the fundamental principles of our social organization, and to invest them with power and influence that may be perilous to that portion of the American people upon whom rests the larger part of the burdens of government and who ought not to be subjected to the dominion of aggregated wealth any more than the property of the country should be at the mercy of the lawless." At the best, the nullification of the income tax law was not an easy task. There were eight justices on the bench when the decision of the Court was handed down on April 8, 1895. All of them agreed that the law was unconstitutional in so far as it laid a tax on revenues derived from state and municipal bonds; five of them agreed that a tax on rent or income from land was a direct tax and hence unconstitutional unless apportioned among the states on the basis of population--which was obviously impolitic; and the Court stood four to four on the important point as to the constitutionality of taxes on incomes derived from mortgages, interest, and personal property generally. The decision of the Court was thus inconclusive on the only point that interested capitalists particularly, and it was so regarded by the Eastern press.