Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/227/389/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:52:35+00:00

Document:
commerce beyond the necessity for its exercise, nor can objects not within its scope be secured under color of the police power at the expense of the protection afforded by the federal Constitution. Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465.
While a tax on peddlers who sell and forthwith deliver goods is within the police power of the state, a tax on one who travels and solicits orders for goods to be shipped from without the state is a burden on interstate commerce, and unconstitutional. Ement v. Missouri, 156 U. S. 296, distinguished.
Peddlers at common law, and under those statutes regulating them which have been sustained, are such as travel from place to place selling goods carried with them, and not such as take orders for delivery of goods to be shipped in the course of commerce.
This Court, in dealing with rights created and conserved by the federal Constitution looks to the substance of things, and not the names by which they are labeled.
A state cannot, by defining a business subject to its own police power as including a class which is not subject to that power, deprive such class of rights protected by the federal Constitution.
A state statute imposing a license on those who solicit orders, from samples which they do not sell, of articles to be shipped from another state and which are afterwards delivered to the purchaser by the manufacturer is an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce beyond the police power of the state, and cannot be justified as a license tax on peddlers even though the state statute defines the persons soliciting the orders as peddlers, and so held as to the law of Arkansas of April 1, 1909, regulating the sale of certain specified articles within the state.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the commerce clause of the federal Constitution of a law of the State of Arkansas imposing a license on persons making sales within that state as applied to articles delivered from other states, are stated in the opinion.
The plaintiffs in error were convicted under a law of the State of Arkansas approved April 1, 1909, undertaking to regulate the sale of lightning rods, steel stove ranges, clocks, pumps, and vehicles in the several counties of the state. The judgment of conviction was affirmed, 95 Ark. 464, and the case is here upon questions arising under the federal Constitution.
"Section 1. That hereafter, before any person, either as owner, manufacturer, or agent, shall travel over and through any county and peddle or sell any lightning rod, steel stove range, clock, pump, buggy, carriage, or other vehicle, or either of said articles, he shall procure a license, as hereinafter provided, from the county clerk of such county, authorizing such person to conduct such business."
"Section 2. That before any person shall travel over or through any county and peddle or sell any of the articles mentioned above, he shall pay into the county treasury of such county the sum of two hundred ($200) dollars, taking the receipt of the treasurer therefor, which receipt shall state for what purpose the money was paid. The county clerk of such county, upon the presentation of such receipt, shall take up the same, and issue to such person a certificate or license, authorizing such person to travel over such county and sell such articles or article for a period of one year from the first day of January preceding the date of such license."
"Section 3. Any person who shall travel over or through any county in this state and peddle or sell, or offer to peddle or sell, any of the above enumerated articles without first procuring the license herein provided for shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined in any sum not less than two hundred ($200) dollars nor more than five hundred ($500) dollars."
"Section 4. That any person who shall travel over or through any county in this state, and peddle or sell any of the articles mentioned above, shall be deemed and held to be a peddler, under the provisions of this act."
for which orders have previously been taken by the salesmen. All ranges ordered and manufactured are shipped in carload lots to Union and other counties, each car containing sixty separate ranges, and being consigned by the company to itself, in care of Sutton, its employee. At the end of each month, Sutton settles with the company's employees, salesmen, and delivery men, and sends their reports and his own report to the company, together with all notes taken by the salesmen during the month, and all cash in hand over $500, which amount is retained as expense money.
A carload of ranges was thus shipped from St. Louis to Eldorado, Arkansas, for the purpose of filling orders previously secured by the soliciting agents or traveling salesmen. Upon the arrival of the car at El Dorado, the ranges were taken therefrom, loaded on delivery wagons, and delivered by the delivery men to purchasers in the precise shape, form, condition, and packages in which they were delivered to the common carrier at St. Louis.
"the negotiation of sales of goods which are in another state, for the purpose of introducing them into the state in which the negotiation is made, is interstate commerce,"
and it was held beyond the power of the state to impose a license tax upon the privilege of conducting such business. That case has been strictly adhered to in this Court since its decision, and it is only necessary to notice a few of the many cases in which it has been applied.
enacted in the exercise of the police power, we are still confronted with the difficult question as to how far an act held to be a police regulation, but which in fact affects interstate commerce, can be sustained. It is undoubtedly true that there are many police regulations which do affect interstate commerce, but which have been and will be sustained as clearly within the power of the state; but we think it must be considered, in view of a long line of decisions, that it is settled that nothing which is a direct burden upon interstate commerce can be imposed by the state without the assent of Congress, and that the silence of Congress in respect to any matter of interstate commerce is equivalent to a declaration on its part that it should be absolutely free."
separately and directly to each individual purchaser, but were sent to an agent of the vendor at Greensboro, who delivered them to the purchasers, deprive the transaction of its character as interstate commerce. It was only that the vendor used two instead of one agency in the delivery. It would seem evident that, if the vendor had sent the articles by an express company, which should collect on delivery, such a mode of delivery would not have subjected the transaction to state taxation."
In Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507, an ordinance of the Borough of Sunbury, in the State of Pennsylvania, was held invalid which undertook to make it unlawful to solicit on the streets or by traveling from house to house, orders for the sale or delivery at retail, of foreign or domestic goods not of the parties' own manufacture or production, without a license, for which a fee was charged. It was undertaken in that case to apply the ordinance to Rearick, who solicited orders for brooms which were shipped from Columbus, Ohio, to fill the orders solicited, the brooms being tagged and marked according to the number ordered, and tied together in bundles of about a dozen for shipment. It was held that the brooms were specifically appropriated to the keeping of contracts the fulfilling of which required the transportation of the brooms for delivery in interstate commerce.
soliciting orders for the pictures and frames could not be applied to persons taking such orders to be fulfilled by shipments from another state, which constituted interstate commerce, and which could not be taxed under the law of the state.
"the police power of a state cannot obstruct foreign commerce or interstate commerce beyond the necessity for its exercise, and under color of it objects not within its scope cannot be secured at the expense of the protection afforded by the federal Constitution."
To the same effect, Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 116 U. S. 460; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 135 U. S. 108; Brennan v. Titusville, 153 U. S. 302, 153 U. S. 303.
"The defendant's occupation was offering for sale and selling sewing machines by going from place to place in the State of Missouri in a wagon, without a license. There is nothing in the case to show that he ever offered for sale any machine that he did not have with him at the time. His dealings were neither accompanied nor followed by any transfer of goods, or of any order for their transfer, from one state to another, and were neither interstate commerce in themselves nor were they in any way directly connected with such commerce."
they are such as travel from place to place, selling the goods carried about with them, not such as take orders for the delivery of goods to be shipped in the course of commerce. Here, as the facts show, the sample ranges carried about from place to place are not sold. Orders are taken and transmitted to the manufacturer in another state for ranges to be delivered in fulfillment of such orders, which are in fact shipped in interstate commerce and delivered to the persons who ordered them. Business of this character, as well settled by the decisions of this Court, constitutes interstate commerce, and the privilege of doing it cannot be taxed by the state.

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