by vessel from a foreign port to the port of New York, for whom a tax has not heretofore been paid," and the court held the statute to be void, on the grounds that the words "inspection laws," "imports," and "exports," as used in the Constitution, refer not to the persons, but to property, and that the case, therefore, came within the ruling of the cases which have been cited. The rule, therefore, as to the taxation of passengers coming by water into the ports of a state from foreign countries and from other states is that the United States may, and the states may not, directly or indirectly, tax such passengers. The application of the same principles determined the case of the Philadelphia and Southern Steamship Co. v. Pennsylvania,' in which the question was as to the liability of the gross receipts of a steamship company derived from the foreign and interstate transportation of persons and property to taxation by the state incorporating the company, and the court decided against the liability, overruling the case of the State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts.2.

3

38. The cases as to state taxation of goods, as subjects of interstate commerce, follow in the same line. The first case is Almy v. California, in which the facts were that a statute of California having imposed a stamp duty "on bills of lading for the transportation from any point or place within that state to any point or place without the state," of gold or silver coin, and bars, and gold dust, and Almy having been indicted and convicted in the state court of last resort for violation of that law, in that he, as master of the ship Rattler, then lying in the port of San Francisco, received on board certain gold dust for transportation to New York, and issued therefor an unstamped bill of lading; the judgment was reversed in the Supreme Court of the

1 122 U. S. 326.

2 15 Wall. 284.

3 24 How. 169.

United States, on the grounds that the statute of the state was void for repugnancy to the constitutional prohibition of state duties on imports and exports, a duty on a bill of lading being in substance a duty on the merchandise represented by that instrument. In Woodruff v. Parham, Miller, J., in delivering the judgment of the court says, "it seems to have escaped the attention of counsel on both sides, and of the Chief Justice who delivered the opinion, that the case was one of interstate commerce. No distinction of the kind is taken by counsel, none alluded to by the court, except in the incidental statement of the termini of the voyage. The case, however, was well decided on the ground taken by Mr. Blair, counsel for the defendant, namely, that such a tax was a regulation of commerce, a tax imposed upon the transportation of goods from one state to another, over the high seas, in conflict with that freedom of transit of goods and persons between one state and another, which is within the rule laid down in Crandall v.. Nevada,2 and with the authority of Congress to regulate commerce among the states." The next case is Woodruff v. Parham,3 in which the facts were that the city of Mobile having, under the legislative authority of the state of Alabama, imposed a tax upon "sales at auction," and Woodruff having, as an auctioneer, sold in their original and unbroken packages merchandise, the product of states other than Alabama, resisted payment of the tax, and an action having been brought in a court of the state against him, to recover the amount of the tax, judgment was entered against him, and affirmed in the Supreme Court, on the ground that, as the constitutional prohibition of duties on imports and exports has reference not to articles imported from one state to another, but

1 8 Wall. 137.

26 Wall. 35.

3 8 Wall. 123.

only to articles imported from a foreign country into one of the United States, or from one of those states to a foreign country, the tax in question was not a duty on imports or exports; and that as the tax had an uniform application to all "sales at auction" within the city of Mobile, and did not discriminate as against "sales at auction" of the products of other states, it was not open to objection as an attempted regulation of interstate commerce. In Brown v. Houston, the question was as to the liability to taxation in New Orleans under the authority of the state of Louisiana of certain coal which had been consigned by a resident of Pennsylvania to his agent in New Orleans for sale, the assessment for taxation being made under a statute of Louisiana taxing at the rate of "six mills on a dollar of the assessed valuation hereafter to be made of all property situated within the state," and the coal, when assessed, being afloat in the port of New Orleans in the vessel in which it had been transported from Pennsylvania. The court held that the coal was properly taxed, inasmuch as, under the authority of Woodruff v. Parham, it was not an "import," and by reason of its consignment for sale at New Orleans and its delivery at that port for that purpose, it had become merged in the mass of property within the jurisdiction of the state of Louisiana. In Coe v. Errol, the question was, "whether the products of a state, in this case timber cut in its forests, are liable to be taxed like other property within the state, though intended for exportation to another state, and partially prepared for that purpose by being deposited at a place of shipment, such products being owned by persons residing in another state."4 The court held, that, as "a

8

1 Nelson, J., dissented, on the ground that the tax was a duty on imports, and as such wrongfully imposed.

2 114 U. S. 622.

* Per Bradley, J., at p. 524.

3 116 U. S. 517.

state has jurisdiction of all persons and things within its territory which do not belong to some other jurisdiction," such as the persons and the property of representatives of foreign governments, and "property belonging to, or in the use of, the government of the United State," the mere fact of non-resident ownership does not exempt property from state taxation; and that property, the product of a state, though intended for transportation to another state, is subject to taxation in common with the mass of property in the state until "actually started in the course of transportation to another state, or delivered to a carrier for such transportation," but such property is not, at any point, subject to state taxation based upon its intended, or actual, transportation to another state. In the Daniel Ball,2 Field, J., said, "whenever a commodity has begun to move as an article of trade from one state to another, commerce in that commodity between the states has commenced." Bradley, J., in Coe v. Errol, quoted this dictum of Field J., and added, "but this movement does not begin until the article has been shipped, or started for transportation from one state to another.

Until shipped, or started on its final journey out of the state, its exportation is a matter altogether in fieri, and not at all a fixed and certain thing."

39. The rule on this subject is further illustrated by those cases which hold that a state cannot by taxation discriminate against either the natural products of, or the goods manufactured in, other states. Thus in Ward v. Maryland, a statute of Maryland having required all traders resident within the state to take out licenses, and to pay therefor fees varying from $12 to $15, and all non-resident traders, as a prerequisite to their sale of any goods, wares, or merchandise whatsoever, other than 2 10 Wall. 565. 3 116 U. S. 528. 4 12 Wall. 418.

1

p. 525.

agricultural products of and articles manufactured in Maryland, to take out a license and to pay therefor annually a fee of $300, and Ward, a citizen and resident of New Jersey, having been indicted in a court of the state of Maryland and convicted of selling, without a license, goods manufactured in a state other than Maryland, the judgment was affirmed in the state court of last resort, and, on a writ of error, reversed in the Supreme Court, on the grounds that the license tax was, by reason of its discrimination against goods grown or manufactured in other states, an attempted regulation of interstate commerce, and as such void, and that it was also in contravention of the constitutional declaration, that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Clifford, J., delivered the judgment of the court. Bradley, J., concurred; but held' that the license fee would be equally void," although it imposed upon residents the same burden for selling goods by sample as is imposed on non-residents. Such a law would effectually prevent the manufacturers of the manufacturing states from selling their goods in other states unless they established commercial houses therein, or sold to resident merchants, who chose to send their orders. It is, in fact, a duty upon importation from one state to another, under the name of a tax."

Following in the line of Ward v. Maryland, state laws have been held void, requiring payment of a tax or license fee by vendors of merchandise "not the growth, produce, or manufacture" of the state, no tax or license fee being required of vendors of domestic merchandise; authorizing a municipality to impose on vessels laden with the products of other states a fee for

1 p. 432.

2 Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344.