Samuel Freeman Miller

“ But it is obvious that if articles brought from one State into another are exempt from taxation, even under the limited circumstances laid down in the case of Brown v. Maryland, the grossest injustice must prevail, and equality of public burdens in all our large cities is impossible. ”

“ The merchant of Chicago who buys his goods in New York and sells at wholesale in the original packages, may have his millions employed in trade for half a lifetime and escape all State, county, and city taxes; for all that he is worth is invested in goods which he claims to be protected as imports from New York. ”

“ The framers of the Constitution, claiming for the General Government, as they did, all the duties on foreign goods imported into the country, might well permit a State that wished to tax more heavily than Congress did, foreign liquors, tobacco, or other articles injurious to the community, or which interfered with their domestic policy, to do so, provided such tax met the approbation of Congress, and was paid into the Federal treasury. ”

“ But if we give to the word imposts, as used in the first-mentioned clause, the definition of Chief Justice Marshall, and to the word export the corresponding idea of something carried out of the United States, we have, in the power to lay duties on imports from abroad, and the prohibition to lay such duties on exports to other countries, the power and its limitations concerning imposts. ”

“ Neither the State nor the city which protects his life and property can make him contribute a dollar to support its government, improve its throughfares or educate its children. The merchant in a town in Massachusetts, who deals only in wholesale, if he purchase his goods in New York, is exempt from taxation. ”

“ The exporting States wished to retain the power of laying duties on exports to enable them to pay expenses incurred. The States whose produce was exported by other States, were extremely jealous lest a contribution should be raised of them by the exporting States, by laying heavy duties on their own commodities. If this clause be fully considered it will be found to be more consistent with justice and equity than any other practicable mode ”

“ In the Convention of Virginia, called to adopt the Constitution, that distinguished expounder and defender of the instrument, so largely the work of his own hand, argued, in support of the authority to lay direct taxes, that without this power, a disproportion of burden would be imposed on the Southern States, because, having fewer manufactures, they would consume more imports and pay more of the imposts. [6] So, in defending the clause of the Constitution now under our consideration, he says: 'Some States export the produce of other States. Virginia exports the produce of North Carolina ”

“ Similar observation, from the same source, are found in the 42d number of the Federalist, but with more direct reference to the power to regulate commerce.
Governor Ellsworth, in opening the debate of the Connecticut Convention on the adoption of the Constitution, says: 'Our being tributary to our sister States, is in consequence of the want of a Federal system. The State of New York raises 60,000 or 80,000 in a year by impost. Connecticut consumes about one-third of the goods upon which this impost is laid, and consequently pays one-third of this sum to New York. ”