The power to tax is the power to destroy.
“We The People” instituted among men a government to secure the blessings of liberty to their posterity.
They did not create a government to take away the blessings.
US Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 in 1819:
We find, then, on just theory, a total failure of this original right to tax the means employed by the Government of the Union, for the execution of its powers. The right never existed, and the question whether it has been surrendered cannot arise.. … the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”
President Jefferson, concluding his first inaugural address, March 4, 1801:
… a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government… “
Thomas Jefferson also said:
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” — The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 2, p. 545
• Sherar v. Cullen, 481 F2d 946 (1973):
“… there [can] be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of his exercise of constitutional rights”
• Miller v. US, 230 F2d 489 (1956):
“The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot … be converted into a crime.”
John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government is the basis for most of the Declaration of Independence. Paragraph 222:
“The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their [liberty and] property …. it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure by entering into society,…. [this] holds true also concerning the [executive branch], who having a double trust put in him… acts also contrary to his trust when he employs the [offices of government] to corrupt … to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security… ”