Samuel Freeman Miller

“ Any tax, therefore, which the state may put on messages sent by private parties, and not by the agents of the government of the United States, from one place to another, exclusively within its own jurisdiction, will not be repugnant to the constitution of the United States. ”

“ Under these views, we answer the question, in regard to which the judges of the circuit court divided in opinion, by saying that a single tax, assessed under the Revised Statutes of Ohio upon the receipts of a telegraph company, which were derived partly from interstate commerce and partly from commerce within the state, but which were returned and assessed in gross and without separation or apportionment, is not wholly invalid, but is invalid only in proportion to the extent that such receipts were derived from interstate commerce. ”

“ The rule that the regulation of commerce which is confined exclusively within the jurisdiction and territory of a state, and does not affect other nations or states or the Indian tribes,-that is to say, the purely internal commerce of a state,-belongs exclusively to the state, is as well settled as that the regulation of commerce which does affect other nations or states or the Indian tribes belongs to congress. ”