page_title: Brown v. Maryland
section_title: Court's opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Brown v. Maryland / Court's opinion
context_page_description: Brown v. Maryland, 25 U.S. 419, was a significant United States Supreme Court case which interpreted the Import-Export and Commerce Clauses of the U.S. Constitution to prohibit discriminatory taxation by states against imported items after importation, rather than only at the time of importation. The state of Maryland passed a law requiring importers of foreign goods to obtain a license for selling their products. Brown was charged under this law and appealed. It was the first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court construed the Import-Export Clause. Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the opinion of the court, ruling that Maryland's statute violated the Import-Export and Commerce Clauses and the federal law was supreme. He alleged that the power of a state to tax goods did not apply if they remained in their "original package". A license tax on the importer was essentially the same as a tax on an import itself. Despite arguing the case for Maryland, future chief justice Roger Taney admitted that the case was correctly decided.
context_section_description: Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the majority opinion. He summarized the question at issue by stating that the case "depends entirely on the question whether the legislature of a state can constitutionally require the importer of foreign articles to take out a license from the state before he shall be permitted to sell a bale or package so imported."
caption: Chief Justice John Marshall, who wrote the Court's opinion
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