In 1909, under the guise of legality, Congress began requiring the citizenry to pay an Income Tax. The People embarked on the legal journey to have a redress of grievance heard by the Supreme Court. It took nearly seven years, but in 1916, this issue was brought before the Supreme Court which again ruled:
…the fact that by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation…(Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 US 113 - Supreme Court 1916)
If Congress was not able to levy an Income Tax on the people before the Sixteenth Amendment, then Congress did not have the authority to do so subsequently.