Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Power over the person of the debtor confers jurisdiction, we repeat. And this being so, we perceive no better reason for denying the right of New York to impose a succession tax on debts owed by its citizens than upon tangible chattels found within the state at the time of the death. The maxim, Mobilia sequuntur personam, has no more truth in the one case than in the other. When logic and the policy of a state conflict with a fiction due to historical tradition, the fiction must give way. ”

“ No doubt this power on the part of two states to tax on different and more or less inconsistent principles leads some hardship. It may be regretted, also, that one and the same state should be seen taxing on the one hand according to the fact of power, and on the other, at the same time, according to the fiction that, in successions after death, Mobilia sequuntur personam and domicil governs the whole. ”

“ Most of us do not commit crimes, yet we nevertheless are subject to the criminal law, and it affords one of the motives for our conduct. So, again, what enables any other than the very creditor in proper person to collect the debt? The law of the same place. To test it, suppose that New York should turn back the current of legislation, and extend to debts the rule still applied to slander, that actio personalis moritur cum persona, and should provide that all debts hereafter contracted in New York and payable there should be extinguished by the death of either party. ”