such cars be required by such other state to pay a privilege tax as a condition of their being made use of within it while transporting passengers from state to state. A tax upon the masters of vessels engaged in foreign commerce, of a certain sum on account of every passenger brought from a foreign country into the state, is a tax upon commerce. On the other hand, a tax on exchange and money brokers, a tax on legacies to aliens, and a tax on the gross receipts of a railway company engaged in interstate commerce,' have all been sustained against the objection that in effect they were a tax upon commerce, and an interference with the constitutional powers of congress.

Pennsylvania, 114 U. S., 196; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Allen, 22 Fed. Rep., 376; State v. Pullman Palace Car Co., 16 Fed. Rep., 193.

1 Pullman Sou. Car Co. v. Nolan, 22 Fed. Rep., 276. Contra, Pullman Sou. Car Co. v. Gaines, 3 Tenn. Ch., 587. A New Jersey corporation engaged wholly in the transportation of persons and property between states, while subject in Pennsylvania to ordinary taxation on the value of its property in that state, cannot be taxed there on the appraised value of its capital stock. Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S., 196.

2 Passenger Cases, 7 How., 283. It would make no difference that the master was permitted to give an indemnity bond in lieu of payment. Henderson v. Mayor, 92 U. S., 259. A tax on alien passengers is none the less a tax on commerce because of being levied in aid of state inspection laws. Those laws apply to property, not to persons. People v. Compagnie, etc., 107 U. S., 59. And see Commissioners v. North German Lloyd, 92 U. S., 259; Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S., 275.

But an act of congress requiring the collector of a port to demand and receive from the master, owner or consignee of each vessel arriving from a foreign port a certain sum for each passenger he brings into port who is not a citizen, is valid. The power to pass such acts is not in the states, but in the United States. The burden imposed is not strictly a tax, but it is imposed under the power to regulate immigration, and in the very act of exercising that power, and is therefore constitutional. Head Money Cases, 112 U. S., 580.

A parish may require a license tax of the owner of a steamer used for trading and peddling upon its waters. Steamer Block v. Richland, 26 La. An., 642.

Nathan v. Louisiana, 8 How., 73.

4 Mager v. Grima, 8 How., 490.

5 State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall., 284, 289.

A steamship company chartered in Pennsylvania and engaged in foreign and interstate commerce may be taxed in that state on gross receipts. Phil. & Sou., etc., Co. v. Commonwealth, 104 Pa. St., 109. An

Property which constitutes a part of the general mass of property of a state is taxable, though it may have been or may be designed to be the subject of commerce under congressional regulation. We have seen already that goods imported under · the laws of congress may be taxed by the states with other property when they have passed from the importer's hands, or have become a part of the general property of the state by the breaking up of the packages; and property bought within a state to be shipped out of it, but not yet started on its destination, and awaiting a finishing process, is taxable with other property within the state; and so is grain bought on commission for shipment; and so are cattle

3

express company may be taxed a percentage on receipts. Am. U. Exp. Co. v. St. Joseph, 66 Mo., 675. See West. U. Tel. Co. v. Mayer, 28 Ohio St., 521.

In Indiana v. Am. Exp. Co., 7 Biss., 227, it was held that a state cannot tax a foreign corporation on gross receipts not received in the state, nor on receipts for transportation of merchandise taken up and delivered out of but carried through the state. To the same effect is Indiana v. Pullman Palace Car Co., 11 Biss., 561; S. C., 16 Fed. Rep., 193. A tax on carriers of ten cents on each passenger carried is a tax on commerce. State Treasurer v. Railroad Co., 4 Houst., 158. In People v. Gold & Stock Tel. Co., 98 N. Y., 67, a tax on a telegraph company, whose line was partly within and partly without the state, measured by its capital stock, was held not violative of any provision of the federal constitution, and People v. Home Ins. Co., 92 N. Y., 328, and People v. Eq. Trust Co., 96 N. Y., 387, were cited. In Alabama it is held competent to make the amount of privilege tax required of a telegraph company depend upon whether its operations extended beyond the state, or, on the other hand, were limited to the state or to the city. Southern Exp. Co. v. Mobile, 49 Ala., 404. See Montgomery v. Shoemaker, 51 Ala., 114.

A privilege tax required of steamboat and railroad agents was held in Lightburne v. Taxing District, 4 Lea, 220, not to be a tax on commerce.

1 Brown v. Maryland, 4 Wheat., 419, 437; Waring v. Mayor, 8 Wall., 110, Articles imported may be taxed after they have passed from the hands of the importer, even though they remain in the original packages. Waring v. The Mayor, 8 Wall., 110. See Low v. Austin, 13 Wall., 29; Kenny v. Harwell, 42 Ga., 416.

2 Powell v. Madison, 21 Ind., 335; Rieman v. Shepard, 27 Ind., 288; Standard Oil Co. v. Combs, 96 Ind., 179; Carrier v. Gordon, 21 Ohio St., 605. In this last case it is held that property not yet removed from the place of its purchase cannot be considered as in transitu because of any intent to ship it. See Cole v. Randolph, 31 La. An., 535.

3 Walton v. Westwood, 73 Ill., 125. Coal brought into a state for sale is taxable there. Brown v. Houston, 33 La. An., 843.

owned out of the state but kept in it several months for pasturage.1

A tax on travel may be as clearly void as any other tax on interstate or foreign intercourse. The state cannot tax the privilege of passing out of or coming into the state, either directly by levying the tax on the person going or coming, or indirectly by requiring carriers to pay a tax in respect to each person carried or brought by them.2

Taxes in abridgment of the privileges and immunities of citizens. The federal constitution provides that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states. The obvious purpose is to preclude the several states from discriminating in their legisla tion against the citizens of other states. A state law, therefore, which imposes upon citizens of other states higher taxes or duties than are imposed upon citizens of the states laying them, is void, and the principle applies to privilege taxes and taxes upon business, and will preclude a state from levying upon traders from other states a license tax greater than is required of its own citizens. A state law is void which provides that no person shall be licensed to engage in a particular employ

1 Hardesty v. Fleming, 57 Tex., 395. In State v. Railroad Co., 40 Md., 22, a tax on all coal received by carriers, and to be carried to points either within or without the state, was held to be a tax on commerce.

2 Passenger Cases, 7 How., 283; Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall., 35; Henderson v. Mayor, 92 U. S., 259; State Treasurer v. Railroad Co., 4 Houst., 158. See New York v. Miln, 11 Pet., 102.

3 Art. 4, § 2, par. 1.

+ Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C., 371; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall., 168; Ward . Maryland, 12 Wall., 418; Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S., 176, 183; Lemon v. People, 20 N. Y., 562; Ex parte Archy, 9 Cal., 147; Jackson v. Bullock, 12 Conn., 38.

Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C., 371, 380, per Washington, J.; Wiley v. Parmer, 14 Ala., 627; Scott v. Watkins, 22 Ark., 556, 564; Oliver v. Washington Mills, 11 Allen, 268.

6 Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall., 418; State v. North, 27 Mo., 464; Crow v. State, 14 Mo., 237; Gould v. Atlanta, 55 Ga., 678; McGuire v. Parker, 32 La. An., 832; Marshalltown v. Blum, 58 Ia., 184. A tax is held void which discriminates in favor of goods bought from a resident who has paid his occupation tax against those bought from a non-resident who was liable to no such tax. Albertson v. Wallace, 81 N. C., 479.

ment unless he has been a resident of the state for a year;1 but mere matters of detail in revenue legislation, which make distinctions in forms and procedure in the taxation of residents and non-residents, but which have in view the securing of uniformity in the burden, and are adopted because supposed to be necessary to that end, are not objectionable, where a difference in circumstances seems to justify different regulations.2

Corporations are not citizens within the meaning of the clause of the constitution now under consideration. It is therefore no violation of the privileges and immunities of citizens of other states to require a corporation, of which such citizens are stockholders, to submit to such taxation as the state shall see fit to impose as a condition of doing business therein.*

Violations of treaty. Congress, in its legislation, may disregard a treaty if it shall see fit to do so, but a state law imposing taxation which would be repugnant to treaty stipulations would be void; the treaty being "supreme law," anything in

1 In re Watson, 15 Fed. Rep., 511. The ground of decision in this case was, however, referred to the commerce power. So it was also in Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S., 275, where the discrimination was against goods the prod uce or manufacture of other states. Possibly in each case the invalidity of the law might have been referred to the clause now under consideration. See Machine Co. v. Gage, 100 U. S., 676. The right to follow the ordinary employments is one of the privileges of citizens, though the state may regulate them under its police power. Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall., 36. And may require the taking out of a license by those pursuing them, provided there is no discrimination in doing so against citizens of other states. State v. Norris, 78 N. C., 443; Corson v. State, 57 Md., 251. And a state may impose a license tax on one who is engaged in hiring laborers to be employed in another state- -no distinction being made in the tax against non-residents. Shepperd v. Sumter Co., 59 Ga., 535.

2 See Redd v. St. Francis Co., 17 Ark., 416.

3 Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall., 168; Warren Manuf. Co. v. Ætna Ins. Co., 2 Paine, 501; Commonwealth v. Milton, 12 B. Monr., 212. See McCready v. Virginia, 94 U. S., 391, on the general subject; also Bradwell v. State, 16 Wall., 130; Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall., 129; United States v. Cruikshanks, 92 U. S., 542.

4 Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall., 168; Liverpool Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 10 Wall., 566; Ducat v. Chicago, 10 Wall., 410.

5 The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall., 616. See S. C., 1 Dill., 264; Ropes v Clinch, 8 Blatch., 304.

the constitution or laws of the state to the contrary notwithstanding.1

Other restraints on the power of taxation. Great as is the power of the state to tax, the people may limit its exercise by the legislative authority at pleasure. This, however, can only be done by the constitution of the state; and limitations or restrictions upon the exercise of this essential power of sovereignty can never be raised by implication, but the intention to impose them must be expressed in clear and unambigu ous language. But it is almost a matter of course to impose some restraint; and provisions to that end will be considered further on. A limitation by constitution of the rate of taxation is self executing,3 and so is any provision which takes from a state or its municipalities the power to tax or to contract debts for a specified purpose.*

Taxes may be laid to pay debts contracted prior to the adoption of a constitution, without regard to any limitation thereon as to the amount leviable. Such a limitation must be understood as making tacit exception of debts contracted while the power of the state to tax for their payment was unhampered; and it would require terms in the constitution plainly applying the restriction to the previous debts to give it that effect. And

1 Const., art. 6.

'Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall., 71, per Chase, J.; State v. Parker, 39 N. J., 426, 435; Eyre v. Jacob, 14 Grat., 422, 426.

3 St. Joseph Board Pub. Sch. v. Patten, 62 Mo., 444. When a county debt reaches the constitutional limitation any further indebtedness is void, and any tax to pay it is void. Hebard v. Ashland Co., 55 Wis., 145.

4 See Hansen v. Vernon, 27 Ia., 28; Phillips v. Albany, 28 Wis., 340; Supervisors v. Railroad Co., 121 Mass., 460; Middleport v. Insurance Co., 82 Ill., 562. This principle is not disputed; it is recognized in all the railroad aid cases, and in all others where similar questions have arisen.

Trull v. Board of Commissioners, 72 N. C., 388; Clifton v. Wynne, 80 N. C., 145. Town officers are bound by charter limitations, except in raising money to pay debts contracted before the limitation was enacted. Cobb v. Elizabeth City, 75 N. C., 1. The power to contract a debt implies a power to levy a tax for its payment unless expressly negatived. United States v. New Orleans, 98 U. S., 381; Wolff v. New Orleans, 103 U. S., 358; Ralls Co. Court v. United States, 105 U. S., 733; Commonwealth v. Alleghany Co. Com'rs, 37 Pa. St., 277. See United States v. Macon Co., 99 U. S., 582; Merriwether v. Garrett, 102 U. S., 472; Lilly v. Taylor, 88 N. C., 489.