Court Opinion

ID: 9421763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:42.906105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.973447
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins, dissenting on the main issue.
As one follows the tortuous and anguished endeavors to establish a free trade area within Western Europe, unhampered by interior barriers, against the opposition of inert and narrow conceptions of self-interest by the component nations, admiration for the far-sighted statecraft of the Framers of the Constitution is intensified. Guided by the experience of the evils generated by the parochialism of the new States, the wise men at the Philadelphia Convention took measures to make of the expansive United States a free trade area and to withdraw from the States the selfish exercise of power over foreign trade, both import and export. They accomplished this by two provisions in the Constitution: the Commerce Clause and the Import-Export Clause.
The former reached its aim, as a matter of settled judicial construction, by placing the regulation of commerce among the States in the hands of Congress, except insofar as predominantly local interests give the States concurrent power until displaced by congressional legislation. This leeway to the States was established by the decision in Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, foreshadowed by Marshall's decision in Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245. This permissive area for state action has given rise, as we know too well, to multitudinous litigation.
*552But in dealing with foreign commerce the Constitution left no such leeway. It rigorously confined the States to what might be “absolutely necessary,” the only constitutional permission in terms so drastically limited, and beyond this permission of what is “absolutely necessary” state action was barred except by consent of Congress as expressive of the national interest. Thus, hardly any room was left by the Constitution for judicial construction of the command, “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 . . . .” This strict limitation on the States was still further qualified by the requirement that the “net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.”
For one hundred and thirty-two years, in a course of decision following Chief Justice Marshall’s seminal discussion in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, this Court has held, without a single deviation, that a State may not tax imports from foreign countries while retained by the importer in their original “package” 1 or form prior to the use of the goods or their sale. Today the Court, I am *553bound most respectfully to say, disregards this historic course of constitutional adjudication by allowing the States of Wisconsin and Ohio, and, therefore, all the States, to tax foreign imports despite the prohibition of Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, that “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, . . as that clause has been authoritatively interpreted by this Court. And it does so, moreover, without overruling the decisions which the basis and logic of this new reading of the Constitution can no longer sustain. But they remain decisions of this Court. Thus, we are left with a confusing series of conflicting cases amidst which the States must blindly move in determining the extent of their constitutional power to tax. This confusion is substituted for a principle so plain of application that the controversies in this Court over the meaning of this far-reaching constitutional provision have numbered less than a dozen in our entire history. Of course, I do not believe that we should overrule this consistent course of decisions. But to do so would at least have the merit of explicit announcement of a-new legal policy, with its concomitant repercussions on the conduct of our national economic life.
Since the legal analysis of the challenged taxes must derive from due regard for the precise circumstances on which they are based, it becomes necessary to set forth the facts of the two cases now before us.
In No. 44, United States Plywood Corp. v. City of Algoma, petitioner, a New York corporation licensed to do business in Wisconsin, attacks the validity of a tax levied by the City of Algoma on its storage stock of imported lumber and veneers. The veneers are imported from Canada, France and the Belgian Congo. From Canada comes birch veneer, from France, French oak veneer, and from Africa, species of veneer known as korina and fuma. The veneers are shipped to petitioner *554in wooden crates or in bundles secured by metal straps. After arrival at petitioner’s plant the veneers are stored in a warehouse in their original packages prior to their use in the manufacture of veneered products. When used the packages are broken and take their course through the factory. The lumber, birch and cedar, is imported from Ontario, Canada. When received it is piled in the yard preparatory to use in manufacture.
The City of Algoma assessed for taxation one-half of the total value of the imported lumber piled in the yard and the veneers stored in their original packages in the warehouse, on tax day — May 1, 1955. The city said that at least that amount of the imported materials was necessary to meet the “current operational requirements” of petitioner and thus was subject to state taxation.
The State Supreme Court upheld the tax on the basis of the finding below that the goods taxed were necessary for the “current operational needs” of the plant. The tax on the lumber was sustained on an alternative ground. Since the dominant purpose of piling the lumber in the storage yard was to prepare it for manufacture by air drying, the lumber had entered the process of manufacture and lost its immunity from state taxation. Most of the Canadian lumber was received green and, as a matter of good business practice, it is customary to air dry such lumber before running it through dry kilns to further remove moisture.
In No. 9, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Bowers, appellant challenges the application of a personal property tax to its stocks of imported iron ore stored at its plant in Youngstown, Ohio. The facts were stipulated. Appellant purchases and imports five grades of iron ore: Brazilian ore, Cuban ore, Mexican ore, Liberian ore, and Seine River ore. These ores are loaded in bulk at foreign ports into chartered vessels, each of which carries but a single cargo of a single grade of ore. When *555the vessels reach the port of entry, the ore is discharged into railroad cars and transported in bulk to appellant’s plant in Youngstown. Upon arrival the ore is unloaded into a storage yard adjacent to the manufacturing plant. A separate storage pile in a separate area of the storage yard is maintained for each grade of imported ore, and such ore is not commingled with any other property. A supply of ore necessary to meet estimated requirements for at least three months is maintained. Since the ore is located at some distance from stock bins and furnaces, when the need arises for a particular grade of ore it is taken from the grade stock pile and transported to stock bins or stock houses preparatory to use in the furnaces. When a shipment of bulk ore of a particular grade is received it is placed in the stock pile designated for that grade, i. e., all imports of Brazilian ore are placed in the Brazilian pile, etc. Hence a stock pile of a particular grade may be diminished by a particular day’s need, and augmented the next by subsequently imported ore of the same grade.
Appellant conceded that the imported ores had lost their immunity from taxation once they were removed from storage piles and placed in stock bins. The Supreme Court of Ohio decided that all the imported ore, including that remaining in the storage piles, could be taxed by the State, and upheld the challenged assessment. The Ohio court thought that the mere mingling of imported ore with other imported ore of the same grade, coupled with the fact that parts of each pile were taken for use in manufacturing, had terminated the constitutional immunity and subjected the entire stock of imported ore to state taxation.
Primary among the forces which led to the inclusion of Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, the Import-Export Clause, in the Constitution, was the deeply felt necessity of vesting exclusive power over foreign economic relations and foreign *556commerce in the new National Government.2 The importance of control over duties, imposts, and subsidies as an instrument of foreign trade and as a protection for the encouragement and growth of domestic manufactures was recognized as a matter of course by the Framers. For the effective exercise of this control it was necessary that the Government speak with one voice when regulating commercial intercourse with foreign nations. Orderly and effective policy would be impossible if thirteen States, each with their distinctive interests, and often conflicting, one with another, were allowed to exercise their own initiative in the regulation of foreign economic affairs. And so the States were prohibited from such regulation— they were forbidden, except by leave of Congress, to lay any duties on imports or on exports. Second only to this goal in importance, was the need to secure to the National Government an important source of revenue.3 The Framers assumed that, for many years, duties on foreign imports would be the prime source of national funds; the revenue on whose constant flow the operations of government would depend. It therefore was essential to the fiscal well-being of the new country to ensure exclusive access to this revenue to the National Government. Subordinate to these goals in importance was the desire to prevent the seaboard States, possessed of important ports of entry, from levying taxes on goods flowing through their ports to inland States.4 It was important not to allow these States to take advantage of their favorable geographical position in order to exact a price for the use of their ports from the consumers dwelling in *557less advantageously situated parts of the country. This fear of the use of geographical position to exact a form of tribute found an especially forceful expression in the absolute prohibition against duties on exports by either Nation or States.
The Import Clause was a result of the desire to safeguard these national goals and realize these necessities. Thus, the considerations governing its interpretation marked out for it a special path in the stream of constitutional adjudication — a course which diverged in many respects from the history of the Commerce Clause: that broad grant of power designed primarily to assure national control over commercial trade among the States. The often difficult, and continually delicate, considerations of the economic impact of a challenged tax, of the directness of its burden upon commerce, of its potential or actual discrimination against interstate trade, which have been of controlling importance to the proper evaluation of state taxes challenged under the Commerce Clause, are not the pertinent factors in assessing the constitutional validity of a tax charged with being in violation of the bar of Art. I, § 10, cl. 2. In the taxation of imports, the grant of power to the National Government is exclusive; the prohibition of the States, absolute.5 Thus the *558objects of relevant inquiry have been carefully circumscribed. Once it is clear, as a matter of economic fact, that a State has levied a tax upon foreign goods, this Court has always found it necessary to answer only one further question. The question was put by Chief Justice Marshall in 1827 in Brown v. Maryland: Have the goods retained their status as imports in the hands of the importer? If so, the tax is invalid. If not, if the goods have become part of the general property of the State, the tax is not barred by the Import Clause. The answer to this question involves essentially a determination of the physical status of the foreign goods. But, however variant the facts in different situations, the determinative principles have remained constant. And in the cases now before us, just as in every case this Court has decided under the Import Clause, the rules of decision must flow from the careful and authoritative exposition of Chief Justice Marshall in the governing case of Brown v. Maryland. The Chief Justice recognized that at some point in the importing process foreign goods lose their immunity and become subject to the taxing power of the State. Yet the goods must remain immune from state levies long enough to give the constitutional prohibition its intended effect. Every case decided under the Import Clause, from that day to this, has been concerned with applying to the particular facts before the Court the considerations and standards formulated in Brown v. Maryland for determin*559ing when the exclusive national power ends and state power begins.6 In words grown familiar with judicial statement, yet deserving of repetition here, the great Chief Justice stated both the problem and the guide for decision. “[T]here must be a point of time,” Marshall postulated, “when the prohibition ceases, and the power of the State to tax commences; . . . It is sufficient for the present to say, generally, that when the importer has so acted upon the thing imported, that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the country, it has, perhaps, lost its distinctive character as an import, and has become subject to the taxing power of the State; but while remaining the property of the importer, in his warehouse, in the original form or package in which it was imported, a tax upon it is too plainly a duty on imports to escape the prohibition in the constitution.” 12 Wheat., at 441-442.
Since, in Brown v. Maryland, the object of importation had been sale, reasoned the Chief Justice, certainly the importer was entitled to realize that aim without being subject to state taxation. Although more subtle, more befogging cases might be imagined, it was “plain” that, at least while in the hands of the importer in its original form or package, the foreign good remained an import and thus free from state levies.
The counsel for the State of Maryland in Brown v. Maryland was its Attorney General, Roger B. Taney. *560Twenty years later, sitting as Chief Justice, Taney acknowledged that “further and more mature reflection” had made clear to him the wisdom of the principles laid down by his predecessor. “Indeed,” said Mr. Chief Justice Taney, “goods imported, while they remain in the hands of the importer, in the form and shape in which they were brought into the country, can in no just sense be regarded as a part of that mass of property in the State usually taxed for the support of the State government.” 7
It is needless to review the consistency with which this Court has repeated and applied the formulas of Marshall and Taney. A few of the more important examples will serve as concrete illustrations. In Low v. Austin, 13 Wall. 29, the Supreme Court of the State of California had sustained the application of a general ad valorem property tax to cases of imported French champagne which were being held in the warehouse of the importer, a commission merchant, for purposes of sale. The California court was unable to discern any “reason why imported goods, exposed in the store of a merchant for sale, do not constitute a portion of the wealth of the state as much as do domestic goods similarly situated.”8 This Court rejected the reasoning of the state court as in conflict with the principles of Brown v. Maryland, and invalidated the application of the tax to the imported wine. “[G]oods imported," said this Court, “do not lose their character as imports, and become incorporated into the mass of property of the State, until they have passed from the control of the importer or been broken up by him from their original cases. Whilst retaining their character as imports, a tax upon them, in any shape, is within the constitutional prohibition.”9 Similarly, in Anglo-Chilean Corp. v. Ala*561bama, 288 U. S. 218, bags of Chilean nitrate stored in the importer’s warehouse, awaiting sale, were held to be immune from assessment under the general franchise tax of the State of Alabama. The consistency with which these principles have been applied is demonstrated even more lucidly in those instances in which the Court has upheld a tax on goods held by the importer. In each such case the tax has been allowed only after an indubitable demonstration that the goods involved had been so altered from the physical form in which they had arrived upon importation that they had lost their character as foreign imports and had become, through the importer’s action, a new ingredient of the general mass of property of the State.10
The historic standards governing the application of the Import Clause received recent reaffirmation in Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652. That case is of compelling significance here. For the situation there involved so precisely parallels the circumstances now before us as to control these cases, unless Hooven & Allison is to be overruled and the dissenting views expressed in that case adopted as the Court’s views.
The Hooven & Allison Company imported bales of foreign hemp for use in the manufacture of cordage and similar products. The State of Ohio sought to tax this hemp while it was stored in the manufacturer’s warehouse subsequent to importation, and prior to use. During hearings before the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals it was established that the company was accustomed to keep on hand merely a “minimum working inventory” of imported hemp, an amount sufficient to compensate for the three-to six-month delay involved in shipping the hemp from foreign countries. On appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court *562sustained the tax on the grounds that the hemp, having been stored for the purposes of manufacture, had lost its constitutional immunity. In support of its conclusion the Ohio court quoted the portion of the proceedings below in which the company had admitted the presence of only a “minimum working inventory.” This fact was urged before this Court in support of the State's request for affirmance.11
This Court invalidated the tax and reversed the judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court. Mr. Chief Justice Stone thus spoke for the Court:
“Although one Justice dissented in Brown v. Maryland, swpra, from that day to this, this Court has held, without a dissenting voice, that things imported are imports entitled to the immunity conferred by the Constitution; that that immunity survives their arrival in this country and continues until they are sold, removed from the original package, or put to the use for which they are imported.” 324 U. S., at 657.
“. . . no opinion of this Court has ever said or intimated that imports held by the importer in the original package and before they were subjected to the manufacture for which they were imported, are liable to state taxation. On the contrary, Chief Justice Taney, in affirming the doctrine of Brown v. Maryland, in which he appeared as counsel for the State, declared, as we now affirm: 'Indeed, goods imported, while they remain in the hands of the importer, in the form and shape in which they were brought into the country, can in no just *563sense be regarded as a part of that mass of property-in the state usually taxed for the support of state government.’. . .
. . We do not perceive upon what grounds it can be thought that imports for manufacture lose their character as imports any sooner or more readily than imports for sale. The constitutional necessity that the immunity, if it is to be preserved at all, survive the landing of the merchandise in the United States and continue until a point is reached, capable of practical determination, when it can fairly be said that it has become a part of the mass of taxable property within a state, is the same in both cases.” 324 U. S., at 666-667.
Indeed there is no process of logic, however dextrous, which would strike down a tax on imported goods being held prior to sale and allow a tax on goods stored prior to the processing which is preliminary to sale. In fact, the latter tax is less essential to state revenue since, in the case of goods held for manufacture, the State still retains the opportunity to impose a tax on the first sale. If the merchant who imported goods for the purpose of sale was entitled to realize that purpose before being subject to state taxes, certainly the manufacturer who had imported goods in order to process them was entitled to no lesser privilege. Goods lying in a manufacturer’s warehouse in their original form or container are no more a part of the general mass of property of a State than are goods which are displayed by a commission merchant, in their original crates, for purposes of sale; nor is a tax on goods stored for manufacture any less of an “interception” of those goods while they are still imports than is a tax on goods immediately prior to their first sale. Clearly Hooven & Allison did not represent an extension of the principles of Brown v. Maryland but was an application of that deci*564sion in a context where to distinguish the principle would have been to reject it.12
The lucid standards developed by this Court for the interpretation of the Import Clause give clear guidance *565for the disposition of the present cases. We accept the finding of the Wisconsin courts that the imported lumber was stored for the dominant purpose of air drying. Having entered the process of manufacture, the goods had become subject to the taxing power of the State. However, neither the imported ores in No. 9 nor the foreign veneers in No. 44 had been subject to manufacturing. On tax day they lay in the manufacturer’s storage area, in their original “form and shape,” awaiting their initial processing. Thus the taxes sought to be levied on these materials are clearly barred by the historic series of adjudications of this Court, which have established that goods so situated, whether awaiting sale or manufacture, are constitutionally immune from state taxation under the proscription of Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, of the Constitution.
Yet the Court does not choose to take this plainly marked path of constitutional decision. Rather it has *566effectively departed from established doctrine and upholds the challenged taxes. It does so on the basis of a theory which is as elusive to logic as it is opposed to authority — a theory which is not only unsupported by economic fact or reason and without basis in any of the invoked “realities,” but which turns Brown v. Maryland and its progeny into ad hoc results unrelated to their rationale, and disregards the harmonious reasoning on which these decisions were based and the process of one hundred and thirty-two years of constitutional adjudication.
The Court finds support for its decision in the language of Hooven & Allison. “Unlike Hooven,” we are told, “these are not cases of the mere storage in a warehouse of imported materials intended for eventual use in manufacturing but not found to have been essential to current operational needs.” On the assumption that the cases before us present a situation not governed by prior adjudication, it is maintained that, since the goods in question had been “irrevocably committed ... to ‘use in manufacturing’ at the plant and point of final destination,” and were being used to supply the daily manufacturing needs of the plant, petitioners must be deemed to have “so acted upon the imported materials as to cause them to lose their distinctive character as ‘imports.’ ” But is not this merely a way of giving an. asserted conclusion of law the appearance of a fact? The vital question is how, if not when, do “imported materials . . . lose their distinctive character as ‘imports.’ ” After all, the vast bulk of imports are brought in for commercial purposes — to be exposed for sale in their original form or to be used as raw materials in manufacture. They are, that is, “irrevocably committed” to be sold or to be used in manufacturing. They are not, normally, brought in to be dumped into the sea, as was the tea at the Boston Tea Party. Of course the goods here had been imported and stored for *567a manufacturing purpose. The manufacturer did not import them to sit idly in his storage area.
The very ground how relied upon by the Court, in its affirmance of the challenged taxes, was rejected in Hooven & Allison, as the record in that case overwhelmingly demonstrates.13 One is bound to say that the passage *568quoted by the Court from Mr. Chief Justice Stone’s opinion in support of the statement that the cases before us are “unlike Hooven & Allison,” does not support that proposition.14
*569Putting thus to one side the unwarranted reliance on language in Hooven & Allison, let us examine the basis on which the state taxes are upheld. Both the imported veneers in City of Algoma and the ore in Youngstown, the Court holds, must be said to have been “put to the use for which they were imported,” to have “entered the manufacturing process” and therefore to have lost their constitutional immunity, since they were “not only needed, imported and irrevocably committed to supply, but were actually being used to supply, the daily requirements of the plant.” Again one must ask whether these phrases mean any more than that the goods were being held by the manufacturer for the purpose for which he had imported them — use in manufacture. They had not been processed, changed from their original form or shape, acted upon, physically altered in the slightest, mingled with domestic goods, or “used,” in the sense that anything *570was done to them. They simply lay in storage areas awaiting use. To say that the goods “were actually being used to supply, the daily requirements of the plant,” simply affirms the obvious fact that the imports, unaffected in the form in which they were brought in from abroad and deposited, awaited their intended, but not begun, manufacturing process. In all prior considerations of the Import-Export Clause the immunity of imported goods has been terminated only by physical handling or alteration, not by reference to their assumed prospective role in the importer’s use of them. The imported hemp in Hooven & Allison was similarly “needed.” It too was “irrevocably committed to supply,” and clearly it was “actually being used to supply the daily requirements of the plant.” To that end the hemp was imported. If the hemp was not to be so used it would not have been imported.
Furthermore, if we simply substitute “place of sale,” for “plant” in the Court’s reasoning — and we are not vouchsafed reasons either in abstract reasoning or in practical logic to disallow it — the identical enumeration of factors here thought sufficient to subject the imports to tax is found to be present in virtually every case in which this Court has invalidated a state tax on imports. The crates of champagne in Low v. Austin, and the bags of nitrate in Anglo-Chilean Corp. were also “needed, imported and irrevocably committed to supply,” and “were actually being used to supply, the daily requirements” of the place of sale. In effect, the result of today’s decision means that if imported goods are needed, they are taxable. If useless, they retain their constitutional immunity.
A close examination of the Youngstown case makes apparent this effective reversal of all previous judicial decision on the Import Clause, and justifies concern over today’s holding. The stipulation of facts merely provides that the ore had been imported for purposes of manufac*571ture and that “at least” three months’ supply was generally kept on hand. (R. 35.) There were no stipulations, nor were there any findings, as to the rate of use of the ore, the immediacy of the need for it, or its relation to the requirements of the plant, which also used domestic ore in its manufacturing. We have simply the fact that an inventory of ore was kept for eventual use. The tax was sustained by the Ohio Supreme Court on the ground that the bulk ore had become mingled with the general property of the State because new ore had been added to the pile, and old ore removed.15 The Ohio court did not discuss or rest on the fact that the goods were “so essential to current manufacturing requirements that they must be said to have entered the process of manufacture.” There is no possible way to make the Court’s reasoning fit with the circumstances which underlie and define Brown v. Maryland or Hooven & Allison. Nothing has been done to the ore; it is in its original form and' shape prior to use. Even as a matter of sound accounting, were that relevant, the goods could not be said to have entered the process of manufacture. We cannot assume or fictionalize facts. They must be found to exist. By assuming them, the Court strips them of relevance and impliedly rejects the unbroken meaning that the decisions have given the Import Clause.
Nor is the Court’s conclusion strengthened by the suggestion that, since petitioner did not contest the tax-ability of that ore which had been removed to stock bins or houses, we must allow the rest of the ore to be taxed, as to distinguish between the two would be incongruous. *572The question of the taxability of the removed ore is not before us. That question was not involved in any previous proceeding in this case. We have not the basis for knowledge as to what, if any, processing the ore underwent when removed to the stock bins. There is certainly no basis for assigning a hypothetical constitutional position to the removed ore, and using such an argumentative figment as the means for upholding the tax on the ore about which we do have the precise facts and whose immunity is the question before us.
In United States Plywood v. City of Algoma, one-half of the value of the imported wood was assessed for taxation. That amount was found to be necessary in order to meet “current operational needs," (R. 31) and was thus thought to be subject to state taxation. Formulas for the determination of current operational needs were discussed in detail by the Wisconsin courts, but the Court's opinion in Youngstown makes it unnecessary to examine those formulas here.16 For the reasoning of Youngstown makes it clear that not merely half, but all of the imported veneers can be properly taxed by Wisconsin, since they were all “not only needed, imported, and irrevocably committed to supply, but were actually *573being used to supply, the daily manufacturing requirements of the plant.” I can only reiterate that the fact that goods were “actually” to be used for the purpose for which imported is not, and has never been thought to be, relevant in determining their taxability under the Import Clause. The abstract assignment of a status to goods which are to be used in manufacture is certainly not germane to an evaluation of that physical transformation of the goods which has hitherto been required before an import could become vulnerable to state taxes. To say that goods are necessary to meet requirements merely asserts a truism which is equally applicable in every case this Court has decided under the Import Clause.
The Court summarizes its conclusion by stating that the imported goods “stood in the same relation to the State as like piles of domestic materials at the same place that were kept for use and used in the same way . . . .” 17 The Court then continues:
“In those circumstances, the tax was not on ‘imports/ nor was it a tax on the materials because they had been imported, but because at the time of the assessment they were being used, in every practical sense, for the purposes for which they had been imported. They were therefore subject to taxation just like domestic property that was kept at the same place in the same way for the same use. We cannot impute to the Eramers of the Constitution a purpose to make such a discrimination in favor of materials imported from other countries as would result if we approved the views pressed upon us by the manufacturers.”
*574This is exactly the argument offered by the Supreme Court of California in support of the tax involved in Low v. Austin. That argument was then rejected unanimously by this Court and has never thereafter won acceptance. Whether the imposition of a tax resulted in “a discrimination in favor of materials imported from other countries” has never been thought relevant to the determination of its constitutional validity. The taxes which the Court struck down in Low v. Austin, in Anglo-Chilean Corp. and in Hooven & Allison were non-discriminatory taxes which fell equally on imported and .domestic goods similarly situated. The Framers of the Constitution provided an absolute immunity for imports. The decisions of this Court have given to the brief phrases of Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, the content of a command: “a state shall not tax imports,” not, “a state shall not tax imports discriminatorily.” It is one hundred and thirty-two years too late to refuse to attribute to the Framers the purpose of freeing imports from state taxation which this Court has consistently assumed.18
Moreover, it cannot properly be said that the application here of the settled principles of the Import Clause results in “discrimination” in favor of foreign goods. Whether foreign goods are receiving a tax advantage over similar domestic goods can only be determined by an evaluation of the full range of imposts and duties which the importer has been required to pay to the National Government. Only then can we know, as a matter of economic reality, whether, in fact, there is discrimination. And if we find discrimination, it is the result of the decision of the Congress and the President that the goods involved should, as a matter of national policy, receive *575preferential treatment. Certainly this Court should be reluctant to make inroads on a rule of law so well and lucidly settled that it may legitimately be regarded as an ingredient in the formulation which is made by the National Government when it determines, as a considered national policy, the extent to which import duties should be imposed.
Reluctant as one is to say so, it must be said that the Court proposes no reason for its decision which has not heretofore been rejected by this Court. Nor are we pointed to new compelling policies which must be invoked in order to upset a firmly established principle of our constitutional law; a principle which, perhaps more clearly than any other constitutional standard, has arrived at a lucid, coherent, and eminently workable distribution of power between the Nation and the States.
In the Youngstown case appellant also claims that the tax on a portion of its domestic ores was imposed in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. I concur in the Court’s rejection of that claim.

 Although the principles of Brown v. Maryland are often termed the “original package doctrine,” Marshall was concerned with a “package” only because the statute in that case taxed the selling of goods in their original packages. 12 Wheat., at 436 & 443. Marshall himself is careful to use the phrase, “form or package,” 12 Wheat., at 442, and Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in his reformulation of Brown v. Maryland, used the characterization “form and shape.” See p. 560, infra. “It is a matter of hornbook knowledge that the original package statement of Justice Marshall was an illustration, rather than a formula, and that its application is evidentiary, and not substantive, . . . .” City of Galveston v. Mexican Petroleum Corp., 15 F. 2d 208.

 See Letter of James Madison to Professor Davis, 3 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (1911), 520-521; Federalist No. 12 (Lodge ed. 1908) 67 (Hamilton); ibid., No. 44, at 280 (Madison).

 See Federalist No. 12 (Lodge ed. 1908) 67 (Hamilton).

See 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (1911), 441-442.

 In Richfield, Oil Corp. v. State Board of Equalization, 329 U. S. 69, at 75-76, we pointed out that
“. . . the law under the Commerce Clause has been fashioned by the Court in an effort 'to reconcile competing constitutional demands, that commerce between the states shall not be unduly impeded by state action, and that the power to lay taxes for the shpport of state government shall not be unduly curtailed.’ That accommodation has been made by upholding taxes designed to make interstate commerce bear a fair share of the cost of the local government from which it receives benefits . . . and by invalidating those which discriminate against interstate commerce, which impose a levy for the privilege of doing it, which place an undue burden on it. . . .
“It seems clear that we cannot write any such qualifications into *558the Import-Export Clause. It prohibits every State from laying 'any’ tax on imports or exports without the consent of Congress. ... It would entail a substantial revision of the Import-Export Clause to substitute for the prohibition against 'any’ tax a prohibition against ‘any discriminatory’ tax. . . . the two clauses, though complementary, serve different ends. And the limitations of one cannot be read into the other.’’
See also Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton, 262 U. S. 506; Federalist No. 32 (Lodge ed. 1908) 186-188 (Hamilton).

 Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652; Anglo-Chilean Corp. v. Alabama, 288 U. S. 218; Gulf Fisheries Co. v. MacInerney, 276 U. S. 124; New York ex rel. Burke v. Wells, 208 U. S. 14; May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496; Low v. Austin, 13 Wall. 29; Waring v. The Mayor, 8 Wall. 110. See also McGoldrick v. Gulf Oil Corp., 309 U. S. 414; Cook v. Pennsylvania, 97 U. S. 566. For additional statements of the authority and importance of the doctrine of Brown v. Maryland, see American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500, 519-520; Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Sims, 191 U. S. 441, 449; The License Cases, 5 How. 504, 575.

 The License Cases, 5 How. 504, 575.

 1 Calif. Unreported Cases 638, 643. The passage is also quoted at 13 Wall. 30-31.

 13 Wall., at 34.

 New York ex rel. Burke v. Wells, 208 U. S. 14; Gulf Fisheries Co. v. MacInerney, 276 U. S. 124; May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496. Cf. Waring v. The Mayor, 8 Wall. 110.

 The record and proceedings below in Hooven & Allison are discussed in detail at notes 13 and 14, infra.

 The opinion of the Court asserts that the decision in Hooven & Allison is inconsistent with the reasoning of Marshall in Brown v. Maryland. We are told that Brown v. Maryland “holds that goods brought into the country by an importer 'for his own use’ are not exempted from state taxation . . . and Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, . . . holds that they are. . . .” Surely this expresses a misapprehension of what Marshall said. Such a contention was made here, by the dissent in Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652, at 686-688 (dissenting opinion), and silently rejected. For its refutation see Professor Thomas Reed Powell’s State Taxation of Imports — When Does an Import Cease to be an Import, 58 Harv. L. Rev. 858, 859-864.
The statement of Marshall which is the basis of what is attributed to him was made by the Chief Justice in response to a contention by the State of Maryland that to grant immunity in this case would mean that an importer “may bring in goods, as plate, for his own use, and thus retain much valuable property exempt from taxation.” 12 Wheat., at 442-443. .Marshall thus dealt with this and similar contentions:
“This indictment is against the importer, for selling a package of dry goods in the form in which it was imported, without a license. This state of things is changed if he sells them, or otherwise mixes them with the general property of the State, by breaking up his packages, and travelling with them as an itinerant pedlar. In the first case, the tax intercepts the import, as an import, in its way to become incorporated with the general mass of property, and denies it the privilege of becoming so incorporated until it shall have contributed to the revenue of the State. It denies to the importer the right of using the privilege which he has purchased from the United States, until he shall have also purchased it from the State. In the last cases, the tax finds the article already incorporated with the mass of property by the act of the importer. He has used the privilege he had purchased, and has himself mixed them up with the common mass, and the law may treat them as it finds them. The same observations apply to plate, or other furniture used by the importer.” 12 Wheat., at 443.
It is clear that Marshall is referring to personal household goods *565brought in by the importer and used by him. He is rejecting the idea that immunity can continue indefinitely after use if there has been no sale. He does not say, as the Court would have him say, that goods brought in by an importer “for his own use,” or goods “held for use,” are subject to state taxation. The phrase “for his own use,” which the Court places in quotation marks and attributes to Marshall, was the Chief Justice’s statement of counsel’s contention and is not to be found in his own conclusion. The phrase “held for use,” which the Court also attributes to Marshall in its paraphrase of his views, is an interpolation nowhere to be found in the Chief Justice’s discussion. Goods which are imported for purposes of sale are brought in for “use” as much as are goods which have been brought in for manufacture. A tax imposed prior to processing “intercepts” goods on their way to incorporation in the general mass of property as effectively as does a tax prior to sale. Marshall was not distinguishing between goods brought in for manufacture and those brought in for sale. There is no rational distinction. He was merely denying immunity to goods which had been brought in and thereafter actively used by the importer. There is nothing in Brown v. Maryland that is not in complete accord with what was decided in Hooven & Allison.

 At the hearing before the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals, the general manager of the Hooven & Allison Company was asked if the imported hemp was kept in the warehouse for any definite length of time. He answered:
“No; it might be we would need the stuff as soon as it got there and again we might not; it comes from long distances and we do not carry any more inventory than we need to; it takes three to six months for it to get to us; we attempt to keep a backlog for that; we attempt to run our business with a minimum working inventory, of course.” Transcript of Record, p. 42, Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652.
Relying in large part on this testimony the Supreme Court of Ohio concluded that the goods “had so come to rest as to be mingled with the mass of property in this country . . . .” Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 142 Ohio St. 235, 242, 51 N. E. 2d 723, 726. In its brief before this Court, Ohio supported the validity of the tax on the basis of the above industrial circumstances:
“The evidence in the instant case shows that the petitioner purchased fibers solely for its own use, never for sale. It was impracticable to buy fibers a bale at a time to meet the immediate needs of its mill. It took from three to six months to get delivery after an order was placed. The undisputed testimony shows that the petitioner did not carry any more inventory than was actually needed, but due to the uncertainty of deliveries, it attempted ‘to keep a backlog for that.’ It attempted to.operate ‘with a minimum working inventory’ (R. 16). In other words, when the imported goods reached the plant they were immediately used, in that they were essential to the continuous daily operation of petitioner’s plant.” Brief for Respondent, p. 20, Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652.
This Court’s decision did not accept the arguments made by the State throughout the course of' litigation. The theory thus rejected now serves as the basis for this decision.

 In support of its argument that the cases before us are “unlike” Hooven & Allison, the Court quotes from the following passage from that case:
“It cannot be said that the fibers were subjected to manufacture when they were placed in petitioner's warehouse in their original packages. And it is unnecessary to decide whether, for purposes of the constitutional immunity, the presence of some fibers in the factory was so essential to current manufacturing requirements that they could be said to have entered the process of manufacture, and hence were already put to the use for which they were imported, before they were removed from the original packages. Even though the inventory of raw material required to be kept on hand to meet the current operational needs of a manufacturing business could be thought to have then entered the manufacturing process, the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court did not rest on that ground, and the record affords no basis for saying that any part of petitioner’s fibers, stored in its warehouse, were required to meet such immediate current needs. Hence we have no occasion to consider that question.” (Italics added.) 324 U. S., at 667.
The record in the case, the opinions below, and the briefs in this Court, leave no doubt that this passage does not refer to the bulk of the imported hemp stored in the warehouse of the Hooven & Allison Company as a “minimum working inventory.” Indeed, such reference would be wholly inconsistent with the principles on which the opinion rests. Due regard for the record and for the opinions clarifies the Chief Justice’s meaning. When the imported hemp was ready for use it was moved from the warehouse to the factory. At the hearing, the general manager testified as to this hemp:
“. . . it is removed from the raw material account and charged into processing in the mill; each bale of fiber as it is removed from the raw material warehouse becomes, according to our records, in process. Of course we have to batch and treat this stuff; it may not be used for a couple of days; but as soon as it leaves the warehouse it is charged in process; . . . .” Transcript of Record, p. 43, Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652.
The Ohio Supreme Court took special note of this hemp which was *569in transit from the warehouse to the processing line. It remarked that:
“While the bales remain in the raw-material warehouse, they are carried in a raw-material account on appellant’s books; but upon their removal from such warehouse the bales are immediately charged to goods-in-process account whether the bales have been broken or not.” Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 142 Ohio St. 235, 237, 51 N. E. 2d 723, 724.
As far as appears, these bales of hemp which had been removed to the factory as immediately necessary for current needs, but which remained in their original packages, were not separately assessed for taxation, nor were they, at any stage of the proceedings, treated as a separate item. It is obvious, though his language is somewhat cloudy, that what Chief Justice Stone meant was that he was not considering whether the removed hemp had a special status. Therefore, although it could not “be said that the fibers were subjected to manufacture when they were placed in petitioner’s warehouse . . .” it was “unnecessary to decide whether, for purposes of the constitutional immunity, the presence of some fibers in the factory was so essential to current manufacturing requirements that they could be said to have entered the process of manufacture.” (Italics added.)

 Since the Court does not rely on the reasoning of the Ohio court, I will not stop to examine closely its ground of decision. It is sufficient to note that it is difficult to understand by what mutation an import loses its status as an import merely by mingling it with identical imported goods which are similarly being stored prior to use.

 The Wisconsin court found that one-half of the imported goods was necessary to meet “current operational needs.” On the basis of this finding of “fact,” this Court finds its new interpretation of the Import Clause satisfied. Since that interpretation is far broader than the narrow concept of “current operational need,” as applied by the Wisconsin court, it is unnecessary to discuss the constitutional validity of a rule based on “current operational need.” It is sufficient to note here that such a formula possesses no basis in economics; it is merely an arbitrary figure assigned to a portion of inventory. An appropriate analysis of the formulas tentatively offered by the Wisconsin Circuit Court to support its finding would reveal the unreal and arbitrary nature of the finding. However such discussion would be superfluous here.

 This merely states a legal conclusion. The physical status of the imports did not differ in the slightest from that of any other import this Court has held to be immune from state taxation. Their “relation” to the State is the question for decision.

 See the passage quoted at note 5, supra, from Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board of Equalization, 329 U. S. 69, 75-76. See also Federalist No. 32 (Lodge ed. 1908) 186-188 (Hamilton).