by John Marshall Harlan

“ It is only necessary to observe that the corporations which complained in those cases of the tax assessed, under a Pennsylvania statute, upon their loans held by residents of Pennsylvania, were Pennsylvania corporations. No question arose in either of those cases as to the authority of Pennsylvania to make a corporation of another state an assessor or collector of taxes assessed by or under the authority of Pennsylvania against residents of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The fallacy of the contrary view is in the assumption that this railroad company, by purchasing from Pennsylvania the privilege of constructing and operating a part of its road through the territory of that state, thereby impliedly agreed to submit to such regulations as that state should, at any subsequent period, adopt in respect to the mode in which it should, in the state of New York, apply money in its hands in discharge of the obligation to pay interest to the holders of its bonds residing in Pennsylvania. ”

“ Nor can the right of the company to enjoy the privileges so obtained be burdened with conditions not prescribed in the acts of 1841 and 1846, except such as the state, in the exercise of its police powers for purposes of taxation, and for other public objects, may legally impose in respect to business carried on and property situate within its limits. ”

“ It assumes to do what the state has no authority to do,-to compel a foreign corporation to act, in the state of its creation, as an assessor and collector of taxes due in Pennsylvania from residents of Pennsylvania. Under the sanction of the laws of New York the defendant corporation executed, prior to the passage of the act of 1885, bonds, with interest coupons attached, payable in that state and not elsewhere. ”

“ No principle is better settled than that the power of a state, even its power of taxation, in respect to property, is limited to such as is within its jurisdiction. State Tax on Foreigh-Held Bonds, 15 Wall. 300, 319; Railroad Co. ”