Mitchell
Brushaber held the income tax constitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment — not that Frank Brushaber was a nonresident alien
*The Federal Zone* claims that the Supreme Court in Brushaber treated Frank Brushaber as a nonresident alien and limited the income tax to a 'federal zone.' The Court's actual opinion contains neither holding. The case upheld the income tax as constitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment, addressed three constitutional challenges (apportionment, due process, geographical uniformity), and did not specify Brushaber's citizenship beyond a single procedural acknowledgment that 'averments as to citizenship and residence' had been made. The reinterpretation fails at primary source.
Brushaber: What the Case Actually Says
Brushaber v. Union Pacific (1916) is the most-cited and most-misread case in alternate-tax literature. What the Court actually held: the Sixteenth Amendment did not create new taxing power but removed apportionment as a barrier; the income tax is an excise on the receipt of income, valid against direct-tax challenges. What the movement reads into it: an exemption for private-sector wages. Not in the opinion.
The Federal Zone Thesis at Its Foundation
Paul Andrew Mitchell's *The Federal Zone* (1992; 11th ed. 2001) builds an elaborate territorial-limits argument on three foundational moves: a re-reading of the Supreme Court's 'three meanings' of 'United States' from Hooven & Allison, a restrictive reading of the IRC's definition of 'State,' and a restrictive reading of the IRC's use of 'includes.' The structural argument depends on each foundation holding. None of the three holds against primary sources. § 7701(c) — the IRC's own construction rule — directly forecloses the central move.