Court Opinion

ID: 9841794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:06:35.83784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:50.046558
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan
dissenting.
It seems to me that the opinion and judgment in this case are not in harmony with numerous decisions of this court. : I do not assume that the court intends °to modify or overrule any of those cases, because no such purpose is expressed. And *25yet I feel sure that the present decision will be cited as having that effect.
'• In Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, 496, 497, it was held that Tennessee could not require, even from its own people, a-drummer’s license for soliciting, the sale of goods there on behalf of’individuals or firms doing business in another State. This rule, the court said, “ will only prevent the levy of a tax, or the requirement of a license, for making negotiations for the conduct of interstate commerce, and it may well be asked where the State gets authority for imposing burdens on that branch of ■ business any more than for imposing a tax on the business of importing from foreign countries, or even on that of postmaster or United States marshal. The mere calling the business of a drummer a privilege cannot make it so. Can the state legislature make it a Tennessee privilege to carry on ithe business of importing goods from foreign countries? If not, has it any better right to make it a state privilege to carry on interstate commerce? It seems to be forgotten, in argument, that the people of this country are citizens of the United States, as well as of the individual States, and that they have some rights under -the Constitution and laws of the.for'mer independent of the latter, and free from any interference or restraint from them.” Again: “It is strongly urged, as if it were a material point in the case, that no discrimination is made between domestic and foreign drummers — those of Tennessee and those of other States; that all are taxed alike. But that does not meet the difficulty. Interstate commerce cannot be taxed at all, even though the same amount of tax should be laid on domestic commerce, or that which is carried.on solely within the State. This was decided in the case of The State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232. The negotiation of sales of goods which are in another State, for the purpose of introducing them into the Sta+° in which the negotiation is made, is interstate commerce. A New Orleans merchant cannot be taxed there for ordering goods from London or New York, because, in the one case, it is an act. of foreign, and, in the other, of interstate, commerce, both of which are subject to regulation by Congress alone.” ■ ■
*26.In Philadelphia & Southern Steamship Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S. 326, a tax, imposed in Pennsylvania, upon the gross receipts of a steamship company, incorporated under the laws of that State, such gross receipts being derived from-the transportation of persons and property by sea, between different States, and to and from foreign countries, was held to be a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce, and, therefore, unconstitutional.
In Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 648, an ordinance of that port requiring a license tax from telegraph companies was held to be invalid in. its application to a company having a place of business in Mobile, and being engaged there in the occupation of transmitting messages from and to points in Alabama to and from points in other States. This court, overruling Osborne v. Mobile, 16 Wall. 479, said that “ no State has the right to lay a tax on interstate commerce in any form, whether by way of duties laid on the transportation of the subjects of that commerce, or on the receipts derived from that transportation, or on the occupation or business of carrying it on, and the reason is that such taxation is a burden on that commerce, and amounts to. a regulation of it, which belongs solely to Congress.”
In Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, a state law exacting a license tax to enable a person, within the State, to solicit orders and make sales there for a person residing in another State, was held to be repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution.
In Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, 129 U. S. 141, 147, the question was whether an act passed, in 1871, by the legislative assembly of the District of Columbia, requiring, commercial agents engaged in offering merchandise by sample to take out and pay for a license, was invalid when applied to persons soliciting in the- District the sale of goods on behalf of individuals or firms doing business outside of the .District. Referring to the particular clause of the act upon which it was attempted to sustain the case, this court said: “ This provision was manifestly regarded, as a regulation of a purely municipal character, as- is perfectly obvious, upon the principle of noseitnr *27a socids, if the clause be taken as it should be, in connection with the other clauses and parts of that act. But it is indistinguishable from that held void in Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, and Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, as being a regulation of interstate commerce, so far as applicable to persons soliciting, as Hen nick was, the sale of goods on behalf of individuals or firms'doing business outside of the District.”
. In McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104, it was held that a license tax imposed by an ordinance enacted by the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco upon an agent engaged at that city in the' business of soliciting travel for a line of railroad between Chicago and New York was invalid under the 'commerce clause of the Constitution.
In Norfolk &c. Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U. S. 114, a tax imposed by Pennsylvania upon a railroad company incorporated in another State, and whose line extended from Philadelphia into other States, for the privilege of keeping an office in Pennsylvania, to be used by its officers, stockholders, agents "and employés, was a tax upon commerce among the States, and therefore void.
In Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, the court adjudged to be void an act of the legislature of Kentucky, so far as it forbade foreign express companies from carrying on business between points in that State and points in other States, without first obtaining a license from the State..'
The principles announced in these cases, if fairly applied to the present case, ought, in my judgment, to.have led to a conclusion different from that reached by the cdurt. Fickldn took out a license as merchandise broker and gave bond to make a return of the gross commissions earned by him. His commissions in 1887 were wholly derived from interstate business, that is,, from mere orders taken in Tennessee for goods in other States, to be shipped into that State when the orders were forwarded and filled. He was denied a license for 1888 unless he first paid two and a half per cent on his gross commissions. And the court holds that' it was consistent with the.Constitution of the .United States for the local authorities of the Taxing District of Shelby County to make it a condition *28precedent of Ficklen’s right, to a license for ,1888 that he should pay the required per cent of the gross commissions earned by him in 1887 in interstate business. ' This is a very clever device to enable the Taxing District of Shelby County to sustain its government by taxation upon interstate commerce. If the ordinance in question had, in express terms, made the granting of a license as merchandise broker depend upon the payment by. the applicant of a given per cent upon his earnings in the previous year in interstate, business, the court, I apprehend, would not have hesitated to pronounce it unconstitutional. But it seems that if the local authorities are discreet enough not to indicate in the ordinances under which they act their purpose to tax interstate business, they may successfully evade a constitutional provision designed to relieve commerce among the States from direct local burdens. The bond which Ficklen gave should not, in my opinion, be coñstrued as embracing his commissions earned in business, upon which no tax can be constitutionally imposed by a State.
The result of the present decision is that while, under Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, a license tax may not be imposed in Tennessee upon drummers for soliciting there the sale of goods to be brought from other States; while, under Leloup v. Mobile, a local license tax cannot be imposed in respect to telegrams between points in different States; and while, under Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, commercial agents cannot be taxed in the District of Columbia for soliciting there the sale of goods to be brought into the District from one of the States,—the Taxing District of Shelby County may require, as a condition of granting a license as merchandise broker, that the applicant shall pay a license fee and, in addition, 2J per cent upon the gross commissions received, not only in the business transacted by him that is wholly domestic,-but in that which is wholly interstate.
For these reasons I am constrained to dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court in this ease.