Roger B. Taney

“ It has been argued, on the part of the United States, that the duty was intended to be laid on all articles used for bagging cotton, because the duty is laid on cotton bagging 'without regard to weight or measure.' These terms, 'weight or measure,' were intended to apply to different materials then in use for bagging cotton, such as hemp, flax, and sometimes cotton cloth, &c., and not to any new articles that might thereafter be applied to that use. ”

“ It has long been a settled rule of construction of revenue laws, imposing duties on articles of a specified denomination, to construe the article according to the designation of such article, as understood and known in commerce, and not with reference to the materials of which they may be made, or the use to which they might be applied. ”

“ The defendants in error offered evidence to show that, in 1832, when the law passed imposing the duty on cotton bagging, the article in question was not used or known as cotton bagging: that it was then only seen in the form of bags for India goods; that the first importation of gunny cloth, to be used as cotton bagging, was in 1834. It is made from the yute grass. ”