Court Opinion

ID: 9841718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:02:24.951455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:14.181452
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Waite
dissenting.
I cannot concur in this judgment. We have decided that a municipal corporation may collect reasonable compensation for the use of its improved public wharves and landing-places. ■Such a charge is in no just sense a tax or burden. The State of Maryland has seen fit to prohibit the city of Baltimore from making any such charge for landing and depositing the products of the State. That was all the State undertook to do. I am unable to bring my mind tp the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States makes this the equivalent of a provision that all wharfage at the public wharves belonging to the city shall be free so long as the law as it now stands is in force.