474 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on the contract. The extent of this influence depends on the will 

 of a distinct government. To any extent, however inconsiderable, 

 it is a burden on the operations of government. It may be carried 

 to an extent which shall arrest them entirely." 



As a sequence to these decisions of the United States Supreme 

 Court, not only has the general principle that no State of the 

 Federal Union can impose any tax upon any agency of the 

 Federal Government as its mails, its buildings, its lands, its 

 ships, its money, and the like come to be universally recognized 

 as in the nature of an unquestionable law of the land, but the 

 question of the application of the principle in respect to many 

 cases to which some latitude of opinion was legitimate, has been 

 specially and definitely determined. Thus, for example, it has 

 been established, that a State can not impose license taxes upon 

 persons passing through or coming into it merely for a tempo- 

 rary purpose, especially if connected with interstate commerce ; 

 a State, furthermore, can not enact any law or establish any 

 regulation affecting interstate commerce, inasmuch as the same 

 would be an unauthorized interference with the power given 

 to Congress on the subject. Interstate commerce also can not be 

 taxed at all by a State statute, even though the same amount of 

 tax should be laid on commerce which is carried on solely within 

 the State; and the negotiation of sales of goods, which are in 

 another State, for the purpose of introducing them into the State 

 into which said negotiation is made, has been held to be inter- 

 state commerce. A tax levied by the State of Michigan of one 

 cent and a half a ton on iron ores, if taken out of the State for 

 smelting, while exempt if smelted within the State, was held by 

 the United States Supreme Court to be a tax on commerce and 

 therefore void. 



A State statute which levies a tax upon the gross receipts of 

 railroads for the carriage of freights and passengers into, out of, 

 or through a State has been held to be a tax upon commerce be- 

 tween the States, and therefore void. Under the provision of the 

 Federal Constitution that "no State shall, without the consent of 

 Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except 

 what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection 

 laws," some difficulty has been experienced in indicating with 

 sufficient accuracy for practical purposes, the point of time at 

 which articles brought into the country from abroad cease to be 

 regarded as imports in the sense of constitutional protection, and 

 become liable to State taxation. But it has been held by the 

 United States Supreme Court that where 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 

 lost its distinctive character as an import, and become subject to 



