Roger B. Taney

“ To prevent the destruction of the road, and to provide the means of preserving it, from the road itself, was the purpose of the state.
Such being the only restriction upon the power of the state, whenever any act is done by her, the validity of which is questioned, the true mode of arriving at a sound conclusion, is to inquire whether it is within this restriction. If it be not, however unwise or impolitic it may be, it is as valid as any other act of the state.
Since the passage of the act of 1831, various objects, not enumerated in it, have been subjected to toll ”

“ Were the boat a mail-boat, the exemption of the lading would be much more important to the United States than the exemption of passengers as claimed in this case. Lading is as closely associated with the idea of a boat upon the canal, as passengers are with that of a mail-coach on the National road. The term boat as much includes lading, as the term mail-coach does passengers. I am aware of no argument applicable to one, that does not apply equally to the other. ”

“ And as the compact contains no stipulation for the exemption of travellers in the mail-stages, the general government can demand no advantages in their behalf, which are not extended to passengers in other vehicles. But they have a right to insist that the equality upon this subject, which the law of Ohio originally proposed, shall still be maintained; that the privilege and advantages intended to be secured to the carriages conveying the mail, over those granted to other vehicles, shall be preserved in substance and reality as well as in form ”

“ If the right claimed to collect toll from passengers be sustained, it is apprehended that 'the state might tax at its toll-gates, even to prohibition, a guard passing upon a coach carrying the mail.' The connection between the mail and the coach, horses, driver, and guard, is certainly very different from that which subsists between the mail and the passengers. No right has been asserted by the legislature to collect toll from the proper incidents of the mail upon this road. ”

“ Or, in other words, is it a tax on the coach itself, calculated in its consequences to impede or obstruct the conveyance of the United States mail? We hold the negative. The coach, the horses, the drivers, and the proprietors are exempted in express terms. But it is said that contracts for the transportation of the mail were made in reference to the conveyance of passengers. Such may have been the case. The postmaster-general is not authorized, however, to make any contract exempting passengers, either in coaches, or on foot, from the payment of toll. ”

“ The argument upon the other side is broad enough to maintain the proposition, that such coaches and horses are exempted both from taxation and toll.
Whenever the general government uses the instrumentality of private means to effect its objects, such means are liable to taxation or toll, as the case may be, to the same extent as if they were employed in the business of private individuals. ”

“ His contracts can extend only to the mail, and the mode of its conveyance. The defendants have the right to the road secured to them by the acts of Congress, and of the Assembly, free from toll, for such carriages, horses, and attendants, as may be necessary to enable them fully to comply with their contracts; but when they attempt to go beyond this, and resort to means to increase their profits, not necessarily connected with their contracts, they, like others, are rightfully subjected to the inconvenience of paying the toll, which the convenience of a good road imposes. ”

“ Now, if the first line of coaches has a right, under the contract, to carry its passengers toll free, and if the second line has a right to pass toll free, no toll can be charged upon it for its passengers, for they are just as much the usual and well understood incident of a second, as of a first line of mail-coaches. Toll, therefore, can be charged upon them only where the mail is put into more than one line of coaches wrongfully, for the purpose of avoiding the payment of toll. ”

“ That each and every driver of any stage, coach, or other vehicle, belonging to any such mail contractor or contractors, other than such as are entitled to carry passengers free of toll, shall, at each and every gate, report the number of seats occupied in such stage, coach, or other vehicle, to the keeper of such gate, whose duty it shall be to open an account against the proprietor or proprietors of such stage, coach, or other vehicle, and charge, in a book to be kept for that purpose, three cents for each passenger, as provided in the preceding section of this act ”

“ This is strikingly illustrated by comparing the toll charged upon coaches similar to those employed in conveying the mails, with the toll indirectly levied upon the mail-stage, by a charge upon its passengers. According to the rates contained in the law of which we are speaking, a four-wheel carriage, drawn by four horses, pays at each gate thirty-one and a quarter cents, and if it is not conveying the mail, it pays nothing on its passengers. ”

“ The same reasoning upon which they rely, would apply equally to every thing else they may choose to carry in their mail-coaches, or indeed, in any other vehicle in which they may carry a part of the mail, with the sanction of the postmaster-general. The answer is, that the general government has not asked, and that the state had not conceded, any such exemption. I do not see but that the same argument would apply with equal force to any other toll collected on the road. ”

“ The power to levy such taxes and collect such tolls, is within the exceptions distinctly recognized in all the cases decided by this court in which this subject has been considered. 4 Wheat., 316; 9 Id., 867 ”

“ That the board of Public Works, or their authorized agent, may be allowed to collect tolls from any proprietor or proprietors of any line of stages, post-coaches, or other vehicles for the conveyance of passengers, quarterly ”