William Howard Taft

“ The sole question presented on the record is whether a state law is unconstitutional which revokes a license to a foreign corporation to do business within the state because, while doing only a domestic business in the state, it resorts to the federal court sitting in the state. ”

“ It rests on the ground that the federal Constitution confers upon citizens of one state the right to resort to federal courts in another, that state action, whether legislative or executive, necessarily calculated to curtail the free exercise of the right thus secured is void because the soverign power of a state in excluding foreign corporations, as in the exercise of all others of its sovereign powers, is subject to the limitations of the supreme fundamental law. ”

“ The cases in this court in which the conflict between the power of a state to exclude a foreign corporation from doing business within its borders, and the federal constitutional right of such foreign corporation to resort to the federal courts has been considered, cannot be reconciled. ”