Horace Harmon Lurton

“ The vessels were engaged in commerce between Mobile and New Orleans, and have been so continuously for several years. The court held that the state of Alabama had no jurisdiction over the vessels for the purpose of taxation, for the reason that they had not become incorporated into the personal property of that estate, but were there temporarily only, and that they were engaged in lawful commerce between the states, and their situs at the home port of New York, where they belonged, and where their owners were liable to be taxed for their value. ”

“ It has also been urged that the situs of the domicil of the owner of a ship cannot be the situs for purposes of taxation when it appears that the ship cannot go to that situs, and it is here said that the ships of the Southern Pacific Company cannot visit any port in the state of Kentucky. The fact is not shown, nor is it conceded. The state has a port on the Mississippi, a great stream up which national ships of war have at times gone as high or higher than the southern boundary of the state of Kentucky. ”

“ Protection and taxation are not necessarily correlative obligations, nor precise equality of burden attainable, however desirable. The taxing power is one which may be interfered with upon grounds of unjustness only when there has been such flagrant abuse as may be remedied by some affirmative principle of constitutional law. ”

“ As the place of enrolment is not of itself determinative of the place of taxation, it is obvious that the right to select a place to be marked upon the stern as a place of hail, or home port, does not confer the arbitrary right upon the owner of selecting a place for the taxation of his vessel. ”

“ They are thus engaged in the business and commerce of the country, upon the highway of nations, touching at such ports and places as these great interests demand, and which hold out to the owners sufficient inducements by the profits realized or expected to be realized. ”

“ Pacific Mail S. S.C.o. 17 How. 596, 15 L. ed. 254; Morgan v. Parham, 16 Wall. 471, 21 L. ed. 303; St. Louis v. Wiggins Ferry Co. 11 Wall. 423, 20 L. ed. 192; Old Dominion S. S.C.o. v. Virginia, 198 U.S. 299, 49 L. ed. ”