Court Opinion

ID: 9419631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:32.155289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:10.431132
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Reed,
dissenting in part.
My disagreement with the Court is confined to that portion of the opinion which determines that the Philippine *680Islands is not a part of this “country” as that word is defined in the opinion.
The practical effect of the decision is to place the products of those territories and possessions which have not been incorporated into our “country” as integral parts thereof — Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Canal Zone, and perhaps other territories or possessions — at a considerable advantage over the competing products of states of the continental United States. It enables importers, whether for manufacture or sale, from these possessions to keep on hand, tax free, quantities of non-taxable original packages of imported goods, such, as clothing, embroideries, liquors, tobacco, sugars, vegetable oils and fibres. Freedom from taxation has today become an appreciable advantage. Furthermore this freedom from state taxation is gained through an interpretation of Constitutional power and therefore is beyond the reach of equalization by the states alone in all circumstances and by the Congress except by complex tariff legislation which would only reach warehoused imports from dependencies. The Congressional relief to producers of the several states of the Union, therefore, is an awkward approach, which will create irritation with the importing territories by reason of countervailing tariff increases.
These are only practical disadvantages of today’s decision which should not override a Constitutional requirement; but as it does not seem to me the Constitution cléarly calls for this sacrifice of markets by producers in the states, I would not construe the Constitution to put the Philippines entirely beyond the pale of the American economic union. I do not see the necessity for such a ruling and, in fact, I think the Constitution calls for precisely the opposite conclusion for the following reasons.
(1) In the consideration of the taxability by Ohio of shipments from the Philippines which have completed *681their journey from the Philippines but remain intact in their original packages, the significant Constitutional provision is Article I, § 10, Clause 2, which reads as follows:
“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 it’s inspection Laws: and 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.”
The Constitution contains no definition of the word “imports” and nothing appears in its history or in the decisions of this Court which indicates that the word was used otherwise in this section than in its normal meaning of a thing brought into the limits of the nation which possesses power over the external commerce which may flow into a state or states which are subject to the prohibition of the quoted Constitutional provision. Normally these imports are from foreign countries and hence there are many references to imports in legislation and decisions which indicate that the source of imports is foreign countries.1
Lands are either within the sovereign power of the United States or are outside and beyond that power. When conquest ripens into cession, lands lose their for*682eign character and become a part of the territories of the victor.2 The United States has been content to leave its possessions with a large measure of self-government. To the Philippines it has promised full independence but the time for fulfillment of that promise has not arrived. Until that date, the United States has responsibilities toward the Philippines and has exercised power unilaterally to make further concessions to the Islands.3 Until complete independence is reached, the citizens of the Philippines owe allegiance to the United States and every Philippine official recognizes this duty. 48 Stat. 456. The interrelation between the United States and the Philippines is for both a basis for amicable relations after complete dissolution of the existing ties.4
(2) This Court, however, determines that an import under Article I, § 10, Clause 2, is a commodity brought into this “country” and that the Philippines is not a part of this “country” within the meaning which the Court attributes to that word. The Court is of the view that this “country” includes only those sections of the lands under our jurisdiction which have been so incorporated into our system by act of Congress as to be entitled to government under all provisions of the Constitution rather than by Clause 2, § 3, Article IV, regarding “Territory . . . belonging to the United States.” Downes v. *683Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244. As a basis for this distinction, the Court depends upon a statement in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat, at 437, that a “duty on imports is a custom or a tax levied on articles brought into a country.” The Court must make this argument to support its position as of course the Philippines is not a foreign country. Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308, 319.
There are a number of reasons why I think that this reliance on this language of Brown v. Maryland leaves the opinion without support in its conclusion that shipments from the Philippines are imports. In the first place, in Brown v. Maryland, there was no occasion to distinguish between articles brought into the country and articles brought from foreign places. The words used are descriptive of commerce from foreign lands. Secondly, Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, interprets the meaning of “brought into the country” as used in Brown v. Maryland as follows, pp. 131-32:
“In the case of Brown v. Maryland, the word imports, as used in the clause now under consideration, is defined, both on the authority of the lexicons and of usage, to be articles brought into the country; and impost is there said to be a duty, custom, or tax levied on articles brought into the country. In the ordinary use of these terms at this day, no one would, for a moment, think of them as having relation to any other articles than those brought from a country foreign to the United States, and at the time the case of Brown v. Maryland was decided — namely, in 1827 — it is reasonable to suppose that the general usage was the same, and that in defining imports as articles brought into the country, the Chief Justice used the word country as a synonyme for United States.”
See also American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500, 520. Thirdly, the writer of the opinion in Brown v. Maryland referred, p. 439, to the purpose of the prohibition against state taxation of imports as a thing de*684sirable “to preserve . . . our commercial connexions with foreign nations.” The dissent referred repeatedly to foreign merchandise as did counsel in their argument. Fourthly, the suggestion that the Court’s view is supported by the decisions that sea products are imports seems to me unfounded. Deep-sea products come from waters beyond the national sovereignty or jurisdiction and hence are imports under any definition. American fisheries even may require, unless American bottoms are American territory, legislation to relieve their catch of general tariff charges. Procter & Gamble Mfg. Co. v. United States, 19 C. C. P. A. (Customs) 415. The required conclusion, it seems to me, is that an import is an article brought from beyond the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the United States. De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1, 180.
. (3) Land within the jurisdiction of the United States cannot export to the United States under § 10, Article I, any. more than one state can export to or import from another state. 192 U. S. at 520. When the Insular Cases determined that articles from the lands Spain ceded to us were subject to tariff duties at the will of Congress, the decisions were based on the power of Congress to impose duties unequally, i e., without uniformity, despite Article I, § 8, Clause 1, of the Constitution,5 on commodities from lands under our flag because these lands had not been incorporated by act of Congress into the Union as an integral part of the United States. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244, 298 et seq.; Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138, 149; Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U. S. 298, 305. The question as to the meaning of imports or imported was *685not discussed. Whether or not the articles were imports, so long as the lands of their origin were not an integral part of the United States, the Congress could put such duties as it chose on the products. It does not follow that because the Philippines is not an integral part of the United States its shipments are imports under Article I, § 10, unless the view of the Court’s opinion of today is adopted that an import is an article brought into the United States as that country is defined in the Court’s opinion. The argument advanced by the Court to sustain its declaration that the articles brought from the Philippines are imports would have made shipments from the Louisiana Purchase, Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244, 322-33; Florida, id. pp. 333-34, and Hawaii, Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U. S. 197, 219, also imports until these territories were incorporated into the United States. History refutes such a position.
We are thus left to define the word import as used in § 10, Article I, in its normal sense to accomplish the purpose of the section. It may have had several purposes. Brown v. Maryland, supra, at p. 439. Whether it was to grant the Union a source of revenue, to preserve harmony among its members or to avoid state tariffs which would affect relations with foreign governments, the purpose is not advanced by molding Philippine shipments into imports in the Constitutional sense. Revenue may be exacted by the federal government from Philippine products brought into the states and a state cannot collect a duty • from such articles if they are not imports. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244; Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 133; Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 526. No light can come from the history of the adoption of the section. The idea of an American possession was not in being. But since the Founding Fathers were creating a commercial as well as a political entity, it seems more consonant with their purpose to define imports under the section as things *686brought into the territory under the jurisdiction or sovereignty of the American government.
(4) Such a conclusion probably meant little to the Philippines. Congress has provided for their early independence. But the principle established by this decision will persist for the other lands which became American by the Treaty of Paris. The Court’s opinion disclaims determination of any rights beyond the Philippines but the basis upon which the decision rests supports similar rights for all lands covered by the Treaty of Paris. Similar articles covered all the ceded lands.6 Puerto Rico is in the same status as the Philippines. Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U. S. 298, 305. Today’s decision thus assumes a continuing importance which justifies setting out my reasons for dissenting.

 Products of the sea brought in as imports are a minor variation. Tariff Act of 1930, 46 Stat. 590, provides that dutiable articles are those “imported from any foreign country.” The Philippines is not a foreign country under a tariff act which prohibits importation from a foreign country of goods made by convict labor. 28 Op. Atty. Gen. 422. The Philippines is not foreign country under the tariff laws. De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1, 197; Fourteen Diamond Rings v. United States, 183 U. S. 176; Dooley v. United States, 182 U. S. 222, 234; Dooley v. United States, 183 U. S. 151; American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500, 520.

 American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 542; Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 614; Dooley v. United States, 182 U. S. 222, 223.

 Philippine Independence Act of March 24, 1934, 48 Stat. 456; amending the Philippine Independence Act as to trade and financial relations and rights of Philippine citizens in the United States and all places subject to its jurisdiction, act of August 7, 1939, 53 Stat. 1226; suspending the export tax on Philippine products, act of December 22,1941, 55 Stat. 852; Filipino Rehabilitation Commission Act of June 29,1944, 58 Stat. 626.

 Address of President Sergio Osmena on the occasion of the Reestablishment of the Commonwealth Government in Manila, February 27,1945.

 Article I, § 8, Clause 1: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; ...”

 Treaty of Paris, December 10, 1898, 30 Stat. 1754:
“Article II. Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Eico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam in the Marianas or Ladrones.
“Article III. Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, and comprehending the islands lying within the following line: . . .”