Horace Gray

“ No doubt commerce by water was principally in the minds of those who framed and adopted the constitution, although both its language and spirit embrace commerce by land as well. Maritime transportation requires no artificial road-way. Nature has prepared to hand that portion of the instrumentality employed. The navigable waters of the earth are recognized public highways of trade and intercourse. No franchise is needed to enable the navigator to use them. ”

“ If the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company is permitted by the state of Virginia to bring into its territory, and there habitually to use and employ, a portion of its movable personal property, and the railroad company chooses so to do, it would certainly be competent and legitimate for the state to impose upon such property, thus used and employed, its fair share of the burdens of taxation imposed upon similar property used in the like way by its own citizens. ”

“ Pennsylvania, 122 U.S. 326, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1118.
The tax now in question is not a license tax or a privilege tax; it is not a tax on business or occupation; it is not a tax on or because of the transportation of the right of transit of persons or property through the state to other states or countries. The tax is imposed equally on corporations doing business within the state, whether domestic or foreign, and whether engaged in interstate commerce or not. The tax on the capital of the corporation on account of its property within the state is, in substance and effect, a tax on that property. ”

“ Ships or vessels, indeed, engaged in interstate or foreign commerce upon the high seas or other waters which are a common highway, and having their home port, at which they are registered under the laws of the United States at the domicile of their owners, in one state, are not subject to taxation in another state at whose ports they incidentally and temporarily touch for the purpose of delivering or receiving passengers or freight. ”

“ In the State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U.S. 575, it was adjudged that a statute of Illinois, by which a tax on the entire taxable property of a railroad corporation, including its rolling stock, capital, and franchise, was assessed by the state board of equalization, and was collected in each municipality in proportion to the length of the road within it, was lawful, and not in conflict with the constitution of the state ”