Edward Douglass White

“ It is therefore manifest that, where property owned in common, belonging to the same person, and situated in different states, contributes to earnings, and the proceeds of these earnings go into the treasury of the owner, and lay side by side therein, the fact that there is a common owner, that there is a common business, and that all the results of the business are in immediate contact in the common treasury, gives no power to the state to tax the whole, but only to levy on that which comes from the state business alone. ”

“ If it be true that by the present enforcement of the constitution and laws property will escape taxation, the remedy must come, not from violating the constitution, but from upholding it.
Within the power lodged in congress to regulate commerce between the states, ample authority exists to enact the necessary legislation to prevent the just relations between the states, and the regulation of such commerce from becoming the pretext for avoiding the proper burdens of either state or national taxation. As the necessity arises, such apt powers will doubtless be brought into operation. ”

“ Nothing, I submit, can be plainer than the fact that the value of the capital stock of a corporation represents all its property, franchises, good will,-indeed, everything owned by it wherever situated. ”

“ Certainly the states of New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania would, if they were independent sovereignties, removed from the jurisdiction of the constitution of the United States, be driven to protect, by retaliatory legislation, their citizens, as was the case between the states prior to the adoption of the constitution. But, having entered into the Union, these states are bereft of all such relief, and must thus look for the protection of their citizens to the remedies afforded by the constitution itself. ”

“ If the legislature of a state should enact that the citizens or property of another state or country should be taxed in the same manner as the persons and property within its own limits, and subject to its authority, or in any manner whatsoever, such a law would be as much a nullity as if in conflict with the most explicit constitutional inhibition. ”

“ This court has effectually determined that, where a corporation is engaged in interstate business, no one of the states has the power to tax the receipts of such company derived from interstate commerce business, and that the power of the states as to taxation on earnings is limited to those derived from the business done within the state. ”

“ But this theory, by an enormous stride, at once advances the unit rule beyond every constitutional barrier, and causes such rule or theory to embrace property between which there is, and cannot in the nature of things be, any real union or relation whatever. ”

“ Is it not absolutely certain that the business of those individuals would be largely out of proportion to the actual capital possessed by them, because of the fact that, reflexly and indirectly, their business and credit is supported by the home offices? ”

“ If such a tax can be levied at all, its amount will rest in the discretion of the state. It is idle to say that the interests of the state would prevent oppressive taxation. Those engaged in foreign and interstate commerce are not bound to trust to its moderation in that respect. ”

“ In State Tax on Foreign-Held Bonds, 15 Wall. 300, a tax laid by the state of Pennsylvania on the interest paid by the railroad company on its bonds was held to be a tax upon the bonds, the property not of the debtor company but of its creditors, and that so far as such bonds were held by nonresidents of the state, they were property beyond its jurisdiction. ”

“ Ct. 1384, '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.' The following cases were referred to as supporting the proposition thus enunciated: Case of State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. ”

“ I submit that great principles of government rest upon solid foundations of truth and justice, and are not to be set at naught and evaded by the mere confusion of words. In considering a question of taxation in Postal Tel. ”