Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/75/110.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 07:05:08+00:00

Document:
The city of Mobile is situated on the west bank of the Mobile River, a short distance above its entry into the Bay of Mobile. The bay stretches about thirty miles below the city, and is connected with the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow strait. The town of Mobile, by an act of Congress passed 22d July, 1813,1 was designated as the only port of entry for a collection district bounded by West Florida on the east, and Louisiana on the west, and comprising the bays, inlets, and rivers emptying into the gulf. The Bay of Mobile is a part of this district. Vessels anchor twenty- five miles below the city, and are unladen there upon lighters, which bring their cargoes to the town. Those coming from Great Britain frequently bring a cargo of salt, and cargoes of this kind are generally sold in advance of their arrival, or as soon as they reach the bay, before bulk is broken, or they are unloaded.
In this state of commercial practice one Waring was in the habit of buying and selling salt thus imported. His custom was to purchase the entire cargo, which came in sacks, before the goods were entered at the custom-house, and usually before the arrival of the vessel, or while it was [75 U.S. 110, 111] in the lower bay. When it arrived in the lower bay, he furnished his own lighters, and took the cargo from off the vessel. Until the time of such delivery the risk remained in the shippers. The consignees made the entries, presented the invoices and bills of lading, made the necessary deposit of coin for the estimated amount of the duties, and procured the permits; and when the duties were finally liquidated as required by law and the regulations of the Treasury Department, they adjusted and paid the balance.
This court has decided, in Brown v. State of Maryland,2 that under no form or pretence can any State levy any tax upon an article imported into or exported from that State; that all such proceedings by the State are absolutely null; that till articles imported from abroad have lost their character of 'an import,' and have become incorporated with [75 U.S. 110, 112] the great mass of property, within the State, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of State authority. We rest upon the doctrine of these cases, and contend that, on the facts of this case, the right of interference by the State of Alabama had not arisen, as to this property or its proceeds.
That whether the cargoes were contracted for before or after the arrival of the vessel in the bay was unimportant, as in either case, they remained wholly at the risk of the shipper or his consignee, until they were safely delivered to the lighters of Waring in the Bay of Mobile. [75 U.S. 110, 113] That until this delivery, neither the condition nor the weight or number of the sacks could be ascertained, and until this was done, it remained uncertain what was to be paid.
Merchants and traders, engaged in selling merchandise in the city of Mobile in the State of Alabama, are required by an ordinance passed by the corporate authorities to pay a tax to the city equal to one-half of one per cent. on the gross amount of their sales, whether the merchandise was sold at private sale or at public auction; and if they were so engaged the six months next preceding the 1st day of April, 1866, they were also required, within fifteen days thereafter, to return, under oath, to the collector of taxes, the gross amount of their sales during that period of time; and the [75 U.S. 110, 114] provision was, that if any such merchant or trader neglected or failed to make such return, he should be subject to such a fine, not exceeding fifty dollars per day, as the mayor of the city might impose for each day's failure or refusal.
Sales of merchandise were made by the complainant within that period to a large amount, and he was duly notified that he was required to make return, under oath, of the gross amount of such sales, and having neglected and refused to comply with that requirement within the time specified in the ordinance, the mayor of the city caused a summons to be issued and duly served, commanding the complainant to appear before him, as such mayor, to answer for such neglect, but he refused to obey the commands of the summons, and thereupon a warrant was issued, and he was arrested and brought before the mayor to answer for such contempt; and, after hearing, he was sentenced to pay a fine of fifty dollars for a breach of the before-mentioned ordinance. Subsequently, a second notice of a similar character was given, and the complainant still neglecting and refusing to make the required returns, he was again summoned to appear before the mayor to answer for the neglect, but he refused a second time to obey the commands of the precept, and, thereupon, such proceedings were had that he was again found guilty of contempt and was sentenced to pay an additional fine of fifty dollars.
Regarding these proceedings as unwarranted, the complainant filed a bill in equity against the mayor and tax-collector of the city, in the local Chancery Court, in which he prayed that the respondents might be enjoined from collecting the fines adjudged against him, and from any attempt to collect the tax, and that the tax might be adjudged to be null and void. Proofs were taken and the parties were heard, and the final decree of the Chancellor was, that the complainant was entitled to the relief asked, and that the injunction should be made perpetual; but that decree, on the appeal of the respondents to the Supreme Court of the State, was, in all things, reversed, and the Supreme Court entered a decree that the bill of complaint should be dismissed. Whereupon [75 U.S. 110, 115] the complainant in the Chancery Court sued out a writ of error, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, and removed the cause into this court.
Ships frequently go there in ballast for cargoes of cotton, [75 U.S. 110, 116] and those going there for that purpose from Liverpool frequently carry salt, using it in many cases as ballast instead of thr articles more usually employed, which do not pay freight. Such shipments are made by the owners or charterers of the vessel, and the salt, whether stowed as cargo or used as ballast, is usually consigned to the agents of the vessel. Purchases of salt imported under such circumstances were made by the complainant to a very large amount, and the record shows that he sold the salt at his place of business in the city to traders and large consumers in the original packages. The contracts to purchase were made before the goods were entered at the custom-house, with the consignees of the salt, sometimes before and sometimes after the arrival of the vessel at the anchorage in the lower harbor, but the terms of the contract in all cases were that the risk should continue to be in the shipper until the salt was delivered to the complainant over the side of the vessel into his lighters. He agreed to furnish the lighters and to bring them alongside of the vessel, and the contract was that the salt, when it was transshipped into the lighters of the complainant, became his property, and he assumed the risk and expense of transporting the same to the wharf and from thence to his own warehouse or place of business; but if the goods were lost before such delivery the agreement to purchase was not obligatory.
Viewed in the light of these conceded facts the defendants contend that the complainant was not the importer of the salt; that the salt was imported by the owners of the vessel, and that the sale of the salt as made by the consignees to the complainant was a sale of imported merchandise.
Reference need not be made to the subsequent proceedings of the appraisers, weighers, and gaugers, preparatory to the liquidation of the duties, as no one pretends that ony of those acts can be performed before the goods are imported.
In order to obtain a permit to discharge the salt into the lighters in this case, the proof is full to the point, that a deposit of coin had to be made at the custom-house by the consignees, and that the duties were finally paid by them as liquidated, after the true weight of the salt was ascertained by the return of the weighers. They made the entries, presented the invoices and bills of lading, made the necessary deposit of coin for the estimated amount of the duties, and procured the permits; and when the duties were finally liquidated as required by law and the regulations of the Treasury Department, they adjusted and paid the balance.
Whether the contracts to purchase were made before or after the vessel arrived in the bay is quite immaterial, as the agreement was, that the risk should continue to be in the owner or consignees until they delivered the salt into the complainant's lighters, alongside of the vessel. Delivery, under the terms of the contract, could not be made before the vessel arrived, nor before the salt was legally entered at the custom-house, as the hatches could not be removed for any such purpose until the permit was received from the collector.
By that section it is provided that where a ship or vessel shall be prevented by ice from getting to the port or place at which her cargo is intended to be delivered, the collector of the district may receive the report and entry of such ship or vessel, . . . and grant a permit for unlading or landing the goods imported, at any place within his district, [75 U.S. 110, 121] which shall appear to him most convenient and proper. Variations from the usual course of proceedings in such matters are also necessarily made at all the ports and places where lighters are required in loading and unloading ships and vessels engaged in commerce and navigation.
Congress has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes, and the Constitution also provides that no State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws, with a view to raise a revenue for State purposes. The State of Maryland passed a law requiring all importers of foreign articles, enumerated in the law, and other persons selling the same by wholesale, before they should be authorized to sell the imported articles, to take a license, for which they were required to pay fifty dollars, and in case of refusal or neglect, the provision was, that they should forfeit the amount of the license tax and be subject to a fine of one hundred dollars. 18 Subsequently an importing merchant, resident in the State, refused to pay the tax, and the State court sustained the validity of the State law, and imposed on him the penalty [75 U.S. 110, 122] therein prescribed. Dissatisfied with the judgment he removed the cause into this court by writ of error, and this court held, Marshall, C. J., giving the opinion of the court, that the State law was a tax on imports, and that the mode of levying it, as by a tax on the occupation of the importer, merely varied the form in which the tax was imposed without varying the substance; that while the articles imported remained the property of the importer in his warehouse in the original forms or packages in which they were imported, a tax upon them was too plainly a duty on imports to escape the prohibition of the Constitution, but the court admitted that whenever the importer has so acted upon the thing imported that it has become incorporated and mixed with the mass of property in the country, it must be considered as having lost its distinctive character as an import, and as having become subject to the taxing power of the State.
When the importer sells the imported articles, or otherwise mixes them with the general property of the State by breaking up the packages, the state of things changes, as was said by this court in the leading case, as the tax then [75 U.S. 110, 123] finds the articles already incorporated with the mass of property by the act of the importer.
[ Footnote 1 ] 3 Stat. at Large, 35.
[ Footnote 2 ] 12 Wheaton, 419; and see Almy v. California, 24 Howard, 169.
[ Footnote 3 ] United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch, 368; Meredith v. United States, 13 Peters, 486; Arnold v. United States, 9 Cranch, 104; Conard v. Insurance Company, 1 Peters, 386; 6 Id. 263.
[ Footnote 4 ] 1 Troplong Com. de la Vente, 86-88; Magee v. Billingsley, 3 Alabama, 689; Tarling v. Baxter, 6 Barnewall & Cresswell, 360; Simmons v. Swift, 5 Id. 857.
[ Footnote 5 ] Pervear v. Commonwealth, 5 Wallace, 479.
[ Footnote 6 ] 3 Stat. at Large, 35.
[ Footnote 7 ] The Bark Edwin, 1 Clifford, 325; Same Case, 24 Howard, 389.
[ Footnote 8 ] The Mary, 1 Gallison, 206; The Boston, Ib. 239; United States v. Lyman, 1 Mason, 482; 1 Stat at Large, 655; Conrad v. Pacific Insurance Co., 6 Peters, 262; Gray v. Lawrence, 3 Blatchford, 117.
[ Footnote 9 ] 1 Stat. at Large, 644.
[ Footnote 10 ] 1 Ib. 649.
[ Footnote 11 ] 1 Stat. at Large, 656. Gen. Reg. (1857), 145.
[ Footnote 12 ] Ib. 665.
[ Footnote 13 ] Ib. 673.
[ Footnote 14 ] Gen. Reg. (1857), 145.
[ Footnote 15 ] Audenried v. Randall, 16 American Law Register, 664; Newsom v. Thornton, 6 East, 41; Pratt v. Parkman, 24 Pickering, 42.
[ Footnote 16 ] United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch, 372; Schooner Mary, 1 Gallison, 209; The Boston, Ib. 245; United States v. Arnold, 1 Ib. 353; Same v. Lindsey, 1 Ib. 365; Harrison v. Vose, 9 Howard, 381; United States v. Lyman, 1 Mason, 482; Meredith v. United States, 13 Peters, 494.
[ Footnote 17 ] 1 Stat. at La ge, 694.
[ Footnote 18 ] Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheaton, 437.
[ Footnote 20 ] Pervear v. Commonwealth, 5 Wallace, 479.

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