Stephen Johnson Field

“ Issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce. The policies are simple contracts of idemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the corporations and the assured, for a consideration paid by the latter. These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of the word. They are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the market as something having an existence and value independent of the parties to them. They are not commodities to be shipped or forwarded from one State to another, and then put up for sale. ”

“ It concerns nothing less than the equal right of the citizens of all the States to carry on a lawful trade or commerce in each State upon equal terms with the citizens thereof. Nothing can be more purely Federal in its nature, or more obviously beyond the reach of invidious State legislation. ”

“ Now a grant of corporate existence is a grant of special privileges to the corporators, enabling them to act for certain designated purposes as a single individual, and exempting them (unless otherwise specially provided) from individual liability. ”

“ There is, therefore, nothing in the fact that the insurance companies of New York are corporations to impair the force of the argument of counsel. The defect of the argument lies in the character of their business. ”

“ The answer which readily occurs to the objection founded upon the first clause consists in the fact that corporations are not citizens within its meaning. The term citizens as there used applies only to natural persons, members of the body politic, owing allegiance to the State, not to artificial persons created by the legislature, and possessing only the attributes which the legislature has prescribed. ”

“ Louisiana, [11] this court held that a law of that State imposing a tax on money and exchange brokers, who dealt entirely in the purchase and sale of foreign bills of exchange, was not in conflict with the constitutional power of Congress to regulate commerce. The individual thus using his money and credit, said the court, 'is not engaged in commerce, but in supplying an instrument of commerce. ”