Melville Fuller

“ To tax the license would be to impair the efficiency of state and municipal action on the subject and assumes the power to suppress such action. And considering license and bond together, taxation of the bond involves the same consequences. In themselves the bonds were not mere incidents of the regulation of the traffic, but essential safeguards against its evils, and governmental instrumentalities of state and of city, as authorized by the state, to insure the public welfare in the conduct of the business, although the business itself was not governmental. ”

“ The general principle is that, as the means and instrumentalities employed by the general government to carry into operation the powers granted to it are exempt from taxation by the states, so are those of the states exempt from taxation by the general government. It rests on the law of self-preservation, for any government whose means employed in conducting its strictly governmental operations are subject to the control of another and distinct government exists only at the mercy of the latter. ”

“ The statute expressly provided that no license should be granted 'unless he shall first give bond in the penal sum of $3,000,' and the ordinance, that 'no application for a license shall be considered until such bond shall have been filed.'
The bonds were obviously intended to secure the proper enforcement of the laws in respect of the sale of intoxicating liquors; the prompt payment of fines and penalties; a remedy for injuries in person, property, or means of support; and the protection of the public in divers other enumerated particulars. ”