Statutory-Construction
The movement claim that statutes addressed to 'persons' bind only those who hold the corresponding legal status — leaving 'free men and women' outside the statute's reach — is foreclosed
The movement reads 'person' in statutes as a term of art that quietly excludes 'free men and women.' Statutory construction reads 'person' as a term of inclusion meant to broaden the statute's reach, not narrow it. Every court that has engaged the distinction has rejected the movement reading. The textual observation about statutory definitions is real; the doctrinal conclusion built on it is foreclosed.
'Includes' as non-exclusive: Helvering v. Morgan's settled the question at apex in 1934
The construction rule for 'includes' and 'including' in tax statutes was substantively decided by the Supreme Court in 1934 — at apex, on the merits, citing the Revenue Act's own internal construction rule. The 1934 holding is the apex anchor for what 26 U.S.C. § 7701(c) now codifies. Subsequent re-raisings of the question (the Federal-Zone-style tax-protester line) are routed to lower courts that apply this binding precedent rather than re-examine it.
Person / Man Distinction (Beers)
Byron Beers's central definitional move, recurring across Treatises 2, 7, 9, and 10: 'person' is a creature of civil law — a legal fiction whose status the sovereign confers and can revoke — while 'man' is the natural condition of human beings outside that taxonomy. The distinction is used to argue that statutes addressed to 'persons,' 'residents,' or 'individuals' bind only those who hold the corresponding legal status, not 'free men and women' operating under the natural order. The historical fact that older legal dictionaries treated 'person' as a status-bearing term is correct; the inference Beers builds on it is foreclosed by every statute that defines 'person' for its own purposes.