Court Opinion

ID: 9418391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:24:17.085703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.471058
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes
dissenting.
Many things that a legislature may do if it does them with no ulterior purpose, it cannot do as a means to reach what is beyond its constitutional power. That I understand to be the principle of Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas; Pullman Company v. Kansas, and other cases *544in 216 U. S. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Foster, 247 U. S. 105, 114. New Jersey cannot tax the property of Hill or McDonald outside the State and cannot use her power over property within it to accomplish by indirection what she cannot do directly. It seems to me that that is what she is trying to do and therefore that the judgments of the Court of Errors and Appeals should be reversed.
It seems to me that when property outside the State is taken into account for the purpose of increasing the tax upon property within it, the property outside is taxed in effect, no matter what form of words may be used. It appears to me that this cannot be done, even if it should be done in such a way as to secure equality between residents in New Jersey and those in other States.
. New Jersey could not deny to residents in other States the right to take legacies which it granted to its own citizens, and therefore its power to prohibit all legacies cannot be invoked in aid of a principle that affects the foreign residents alone. In Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Ry. Co. v. Kansas, 240 U. S. 227, 235, the State could have refused incorporation altogether and therefore could impose the carefully limited condition that was upheld.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice VanDevanter and Mr. Justice McReynolds concur in the opinion that I express.