The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1855-04-16

aJncOnstatsrtl0nallty Of the Lquor Law
Now that the law has passed, it is time to in
,a,lire whether it be constitutional. Not whe-
Their it be consistent with the State consttu-
ton, as has been the inquiry in several Of the
States but whether it be not fiat notification
Of an act of Congress. Congress imposes
duty of twenty to fifty per cent On the
importation of wines and LIQUORS. By that
act such importation is licensed and autho-
rized: and on the strength of it numbers
of citizens have betaken themselves to the i'm
portatien of liquors as trade. It may safely
be said that forty millions of capital are in
vested in the business, and that ten millions
out Of the whole goes to support the federal
government in the shape of customs duty.
Now, the question is whether the State Legis-
lature can say to the importers You, gentle
men, have invested certain moneys, and paid
certain taxes to the government in order
to receive the right to import merchandise of
particular kind yet we, in the exercise of
our authority, think it not fit you should exer-
else that right, and therefore forbid you to
make any use of the merchandise you have
paid SO much to the general government for
the privilege of importing and selling. Or to
the general government: You have relied upon
the product of a tax by you imposed with I'M
questioned authority on certain merchandise
for the support Of the State; yet we, in the
exercise of our authority, think that such mer-
chaDdise should not be dealt in, and therefore
forbid its introduction in spite of your law to
authorize its Importation and your loss by the
failure Of the tax.
That the law implies bad faith to the former
the importer--and involves q conflict of juris-
diction with the latter-the federal govern
ment-is obvious. A man who has invested half
a million in liquors and paid thereon hundred
or q hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the
United States for the right of bringing them
into the country, cannot certainly be deprived
of that right by local jurisdiction without
gross Injustice. Nor can the general govern
ment be stripped Of one of its most fruitful and
most legitimate sources of revenue without
very clear and imperative reason for the act.
The people Of this country gave certain
powers to Congress, and certain other. pc wers
to the States. To the former they gave power
to regulate commerce, and in part expressly in
part by implication, took it out of the hands of
the States. Accordingly the general govern.
ment does regulate commerce by tariff of
duties, which has been discussed and changed
too frequently to admit for an instant any
question of the absolute power of Congress to
pass it. Accordingly, also, the States do not
NEEDLE with commerce. All goes on well and
satisfactorily on this basis for sixty odd years.
But at length men start up and argue that for
moral reasons, the regulations made by the
general government with regard to commerce
are improper and must be altered: and, true
enough, law is passed by several State Legs-
latures to prohibit the carrying out Of law of
Congress. If this be not notification, in what
does it consist
The general government could afford to
overlook the Insignificant cases of Maine or
Vermont II they were to give up trading
altogether it is not clear people would know of
of it. But if the fiscal laws of the federal gov
are to be nullified in the city of New
York, the treasury will soon perceive the
difference.
1t must not be forgotten, either, that tue
notification of the tariffsby Maine
law might be used as precedent with fatal ef-
feet, in case any State, as Pennsylvania, Mas
and South Carolina in times past,
found itself in conflict with the general govern
nent. If State can exclude one commodity,
lullify the tariff in one particular, of course
: can exclude all, nullify the whole. Wherein
hen did South Carolina go wrong in 1888?
This business will not be settled without a
ormal decision of the highest United States
;ourt, and the sooner it is taken there the
letter.
GREAT TRAVEL NORTH AND VEST The trave
N our great railroad lines North and West,
gill evidently, during the present spring, be on
grand scale. We perceive that in one week |