George Shiras, Jr.

“ If the pictures and the frames intended for them had been shipped directly to the purchasers, whether in the same or separate packages, such a transaction would, beyond question, be interstate commerce beyond the reach of the taxing power of the state. It is too plain for argument that the supposed incomplete condition of articles of commerce, if shipped directly to the purchasers, cannot subject them to the license tax. ”

“ This being so, no title ever passed from the Chicago Portrait Company, until the pictures were put in the frames and delivered by the defendant. These pictures belonged to the Chicago company when they were shipped from Chicago, and belonged to it when they got to Greensboro. And the question is, Could the Chicago Portrait Company, because it was a foreign corporation, engage in the business of completing these pictures, and in selling and delivering them in Greensboro, without becoming liable to a city tax, for which its own citizens would be liable? ”

“ They can only sell their goods in Memphis by the employment of drummers and by means of samples, whilst the merchants and manufacturers of Memphis, having regular licensed houses of business there, have no occasion for such agents, and, if they had, they are not subject to any tax therefor. They are taxed for their licensed houses, it is true, but so, it is presumable, are the merchants and manufacturers of other states in the places where they reside; and the tax on drummers operates greatly to their disadvantage in comparison with the merchants and manufacturers of Memphis. ”

“ To the argument that no discrimination was made in the ordinance between domestic and foreign drummers, the court said:
'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 State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. ”