April 15

April 15 is tax day.  Hearing that day conjures up memories of harried individuals attempting to file their income taxes for the prior year.  In the "old" days, say 15 or so years ago, the local evening news would cover the night-time rush with persons at the local post office completing their paperwork before getting it into the mail.  With on-line filing now being common, people can put off the work a little longer and file right before midnight.  No trip to the post office is required.  For that reason, April 15 is often not looked upon as a great day in the nation, unless of course you work for the federal government.  Yet, April 15 has seen a few events that have captivated or engaged us as a nation.  After a brief discussion of the income tax, this post will briefly touch on three events that occurred on this day in history.

Ford's Theatere

The income tax originally came into being with the Revenue Act of 1861 in order to fund the Civil War.  War is expensive.  By January 1863, the year and month in which President Lincoln executed probably the most known executive order in American history, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War was costing the North about $2.5 million a day.  In 1879 propeller heads calculated the North spent almost $6.2 billion on the four year war.  The South spent almost $2.1 billion.  By 1906, the North would spend another $3 billion in pension benefits for those who had served the North during the War of Rebellion.  Hence, a tax was needed to pay for the war, and the income tax came into being.  However, in 1894 the Supreme Court overturned the tax on the basis that it was contrary to the apportionment clause of the US Constitution.  In 1913 the Sixteenth amendment to the Constitution was ratified which gave power to Congress to establish tax rates for incomes without regard to the apportionment clause.  In 1863, tax day varied.  In 1913 tax day, for individuals, was set as March 1, in 1918 it became March 15 (a celebration of the Ides of March?), and in 1955 it became April 15.  This year tax day is April 18 because Washington D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day this Friday,  on April 15.

Peterson House

The President who signed the Revenue Act, and wrote and executed the Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln.  As we all know Lincoln was shot in the back of the head the night of April 14.  His body was taken to the Peterson House across the street from Ford's Theatre where he died the next morning--April 15.  Of his memorable speeches, one ends with encouraging words.  It was his last major speech, his second inaugural address given on March 4, 1865.   This rather short address would conclude with the memorable sentence:  "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."  He would not be present to bind the nation's wounds following the Civil War, and the nation would struggle during the difficult period of Reconstruction.

RMS Titanic

While the nation would stuggle with Reconstruction that era would eventually give way to the gilded age.  An age of the everpresent "Robber Baron's" who would make a boatload of money.  They worked hard and played hard.  Cross Atlantic voyages were common, and shipping companies would work to make larger, faster and more elegant ships.  So it was that the Titanic was billed as an "unsinkable" ship, but as we know on its maiden voyage, the hubris of man was met by a large iceberg.  The ship would hit the iceberg on April 14, 1912, and would sink early the next morning in the cold dark waters of the north Atlantic on April 15.  The 1997 film, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, playing a young man from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, is second on the all time movie money list with almost $2.2 billion dollars.  Famous persons onthe ship, who themselves or their families had made money during the gilded age, included John Jacob Aster, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Molly Brown.  The Titanic, and a large number of souls found their way to the sea floor.  Who would expect a ship to sink on its first voyaage.  Certainly not the ship company as it lacked sufficient life boats for all persons on board.  That would not have made a difference as many of the boats used were only partially filled to the capacity.

Boston Marathon Bombing

Just as persons on the Titanic never expected to see the ship sink, so too three years ago did persons in Boston expect a terrorist attack.  Yet, that it what occurred on April 15--the Boston Marathon bombing.  If 9/11 provided a wake up call for the nation in terms of terrorist activity, the bombing in Boston showed the side of home grown terrorism.  Unfortunately, home grown terrorism has become more common as the Paris and Brussel's attacks over the past several months attest.  Islamic terrorism is reaping havoc over the much of the world.  It extends from the far east to the west.

Tax Day, normally

The old saying is that the only certainty in life is death and taxes.  So today, don't think of it as the common tax filing day, think of it as a day from which the nation has endured three tragedies.  One to a President who vowed, and completed the task of holding the nation together, but was never to implement his sentence in his second inaugraul.  The lost souls on the Titanic, from both those seeking a better life in the US, to those wealthy robber barons who flaunted their wealth.  Finally, there are those affected by an act of domestic terrorism, for which is a just one of a larger struggle against Islamic terrorism.  And, if you have yet to file your taxes, you have until you have until April 18, because of the celebration of Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C.  For that you can thank Abraham Lincoln.