When the tariff bill was introduced in Congress, on December 19, 1893, it contained no provision for an income tax, and it was not until January 29 that an income tax amendment to the Wilson bill was introduced in behalf of the Committee. In defending his amendment, the mover, Mr. McMillin, declared that the purpose of the tax was to place a small per cent of the enormous Federal burden "upon the accumulated wealth of the country instead of placing all upon the consumption of the people." He announced that they did not come there in any spirit of antagonism to wealth, that they did not intend to put an undue embargo upon wealth, but that they did intend to make accumulated wealth pay some share of the expenses of the government. The tariff, in his opinion, taxed want, not wealth. He was impatient with the hue and cry that was raised, "when it is proposed to shift this burden from those who cannot bear it to those who can; to divide it between consumption and wealth; to shift it from the laborer who has nothing but his power to toil and sweat to the man who has a fortune made or inherited." The protective tariff, he added, had made colossal fortunes by levying tribute upon the many for the enrichment of the few; and yet the advocates of an income tax were told that this accumulated wealth was a sacred thing which should go untaxed forever. In announcing this determination to tax the rich, Mr. McMillin disclaimed any intention of waging a class war, by declaring that the income tax, in his opinion, would "diminish the antipathy that now exists between the classes," and sweep away the ground for that "iconoclastic complaint which finds expression in violence and threatens the very foundations upon which our whole institution rests."