Illegal importation

“ Perhaps, however, the plurality reasons silently that a prohibition against importation of obscene materials for private use is constitutionally permissible because it is necessary to prevent ultimate commercial distribution of obscenity. It may feel that an importer's intent to distribute obscene materials commercially is so difficult to prove that all such importation may be outlawed without offending the First Amendment. ”

“ There is no difference, in effect, between a power to prohibit the sale of an article, and a power to prohibit its introduction into the country. The one would be a necessary consequence of the other. No goods would be imported if none could be sold. No object of any description can be accomplished by laying a duty on importation, which may not be accomplished with equal certainty by laying a duty on the thing imported in the hands of the importer. ”

“ The counsel for the plaintiffs in error contend, that the importer purchases, by payment of the duty to the United States, a right to dispose of his merchandise, as well as to bring it into the country; and certainly the argument is supported by strong reason, as well as by the practice of nations, including our own. The object of importation is sale; it constitutes the motive for paying the duties ”

“ Anyone who imports and exports the technologies of which import and export is prohibited, or imports and exports the technologies of which import and export is restricted without authorization shall be disposed of and punished in accordance with relevant laws and regulations; Where no laws or regulations are available to apply to such activities, the authority responsible for foreign trade under the State Council shall order him to make a rectification, confiscate the illegal proceeds and impose a fine from one to five times the amount of the illegal gains. ”

“ Under the law, any citizen may act as his own agent in clearing his own imports through Customs and no license is required.
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One of the ancient devices to aid the importer is known as the “drawback” privilege. “Drawback” is a word which is found in customs language through the centuries, and it is another word for “refund.”
In brief, the drawback works in this fashion: an importer brings262 merchandise into the United States to be used in the manufacture of certain articles. At the time of importation, he pays the normal duty. ”

“ Either the state has, in the exercise of its police power, the right to prohibit the importation and sale of articles deemed by it injurious to the health and morals of the community-no matter in what size or form of package the importation is made-or else it has no such power, and the determination of the question of importation and sale is one to be left to Congress. ”

“ The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods, is when some foreign nation restrains, by high duties or prohibitions, the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge, in this case, naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours. ”

“ The prohibition, notwithstanding all the penalties which guard it, does not prevent the exportation of wool. It is exported, it is well known, in great quantities. The great difference between the price in the home and that in the foreign market, presents such a temptation to smuggling, that all the rigor of the law cannot prevent it. This illegal exportation is advantageous to nobody but the smuggler. ”

“ The power is buttressed by the express provision of the Constitution denying to the States authority to lay imposts or duties on imports or exports without the consent of the Congress. Article 1, § 10, cl. 2.
The Congress may determine what articles may be imported into this country and the terms upon which importation is permitted. No one can be said to have a vested right to carry on foreign commerce with the United States. ”

“ To what purpose should the power to allow importation be given, unaccompanied with the power to authorize a sale of the thing imported? Sale is the object of importation, and is an essential ingredient of that intercourse, of which importation constitutes a part. It is as essential an ingredient, as indispensable to the existence of the entire thing, then, as importation itself. It must be considered as a component part of the power to regulate commerce. Congress has a right, not only to authorize importation, but to authorize the importer to sell. ”

“ Unlawful combinations, unlawful at common law, now extend to all the states and interfere with our foreign and domestic commerce and with the importation and sale of goods subject to duty under the laws of the United States, against which only the general government can secure relief. They not only affect our commerce with foreign nations, but trade and transportation among the several states. ”

“ It becomes, then, material to consider the nature and purposes of the statute under which it is claimed the liability of the defendants has arisen. Is it strictly punitive, or is it remedial?
When foreign merchandise, subject to duties, is imported into the country, the act of importation imposes upon the importer the obligation to pay the legal charges. Besides this the goods themselves, if the duties be not paid, are subject to seizure and appropriation by the government. In a very important sense they become the property of the government. ”

“ If a cargo be innocently put on board in an enemy country, if at that time it be lawful to import it into the United States, the importation cannot be rendered unlawful by a detention occasioned, in the course of the voyage, either by the perils of the sea, or the act of the enemy, unless this effect be produced by some positive act of the legislature. ”

“ If any person shall fraudulently or knowingly import or bring into the United States, or assist in so doing any merchandise, contrary to law, or shall receive, conceal, buy, sell, or in any manner facilitate the transportation, concealment, or sale of such merchandise after importation, knowing the same to have been imported contrary to law, such merchandise shall be forfeited and the offender shall be fined in any sum not exceeding five thousand dollars nor less than fifty dollars, or be imprisoned for any time not exceeding two years, or both. ”

“ It was intended to protect the importer in the right to sell the imported goods which was the real object and purpose of importation. To determine the time when an article passes out of the interstate into state jurisdiction for the purpose of taxation is entirely different from deciding when an article which has violated a Federal prohibition becomes immune. The doctrine was not intended to limit the right of Congress, now asserted, to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from the carriage of injurious or fraudulently branded articles, and to choose appropriate means to that end. ”

“ Once concede that it is competent for congress to abdicate its control over interstate commerce in articles whose manufacture, sale, and use are lawful within the state, and to confer upon the state the power to forbid importation of such articles for sale, it must follow that it would equally be competent for congress to authorize the state to forbid the importation of such articles for use. ”

“ Is the proposition which is thus announced by the court, and which was thus stated at bar, well founded? is the first question which arises for solution. I quote the title and the first section of the act which, it is asserted, if correctly interpreted, destroys the right to make just and reasonable contracts: 'An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.
'Every contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. ”

“ Luros also attacked the statute on its face as overbroad because of its apparent prohibition of importation for private use. A statutory scheme purporting to proscribe only importation for commercial purposes would certainly be sufficiently clear to withstand a facial attack on the statute based on the notion that the line between commercial and private importation is so unclear as to inhibit the alleged right to import for private use. ”

“ III. The dutiable value of the merchandise was illegally estimated and appraised by the appraisers and collector, at the market prices of the period of shipment, and their acts, being illegal thereon, are not conclusive on the importer, but are null and void.
1. The payment was coercive and by duress, and not voluntary and without reserve.
The sovereignty of the United States has, as its incident, the power to prohibit imports and lay impost duties, and in the exercise thereof has appointed officers to execute its regulations. ”

“ They are, ipso facto, forfeited by the mere act of importation. The Good Friends, then, having arrived in April 1812, long before the double duties were laid, and her cargo being prohibited from importation; it is impossible, in a legal sense, to sustain the argument, that the importation could be deemed innocent, and the government could be entitled to duties, as upon a lawful importation. It was entitled to the whole property, by way of forfeiture ”

“ But it is certain, if you have a right to prohibit the importation of cottons, and woolens, and cotton bagging, for the encouragement of domestic manufactures, you may, whenever you please, prohibit importations, and shut up your ports entirely. An embargo can only be justified as a branch of the war power, and I think no one will contend, at this day, that a general and perpetual embargo could be lawfully laid. ”

“ And obviously if the possibility of the seller's right of stoppage in transitu, the carrier's lien or the necessity of payment of customs duties are to be regarded as inconsistent with importation, there would be few importations and few importers in the constitutional sense. ”

“ Whoever illegally trades in foreign exchange in places other than the ones designated by the State for such trade and thus disrupts market order shall, if the circumstances are serious, be convicted and punished in accordance with the provisions of Article 225 of the Criminal Law. ”

“ For it is well settled that a feature of an illegal restraint of trade, which is innocent by itself and which may be lawfully used if independently established, may be uprooted along with the other parts of an illegal arrangement. ”

“ His importation was made while the Act of the 3d of March, 1839, was in operation, and when he paid the duties in question, importers in such cases, according to the decision of this Court, had no right of action whatever against the collector of the customs. Those who had no right of action under the old law cannot rightfully complain of the terms and conditions annexed to the remedy given in the subsequent Act of Congress. ”

“ Unless we are to ignore the constitutional prohibition we cannot say that imports for manufacture are not entitled to the immunity which the Constitution commands, and we see no theoretical or practical grounds for saying, more than in the case of goods imported for sale, that the immunity ends while they are in the original package and before they are devoted to the purpose for which they were imported. ”

“ It is confusing to be told that all arrangements tending to stifle competition in national trade are direct and illegal restraints, but that, of course, a partnership that might make such competition even a fraud is, nevertheless, perfectly legal; that "unifications of interest" by complete ownership are indirect and legal, while they are also the most dangerous and illegal forms of direct restraint; that absolutely every restraint of trade is illegal, though there are many exceptions to this rule, without exception ”

“ We feel quite safe in saying that neither at the time of the formation of the constitution nor since has any inspection law included anything but personal property as a subject of its operation. Nor has it ever been held that the words 'imports and exports' are used in that instrument as applicable to free human beings by any competent judicial authority. We know of nothing which can be exported from one country or imported into another that is not in some sense property-property in regard to which some one is owner, and is either the importer or the exporter. This cannot apply to a free man. ”

“ The general rule is that as long as an article imported remains in the hands of the importer in the original and unbroken package in which it was imported, it is protected by the commerce clause of the Constitution from interference of state laws, and it is only when the original package has been sold by the importer or has been broken by him, or has otherwise become mixed with the common mass of property in the state, that it becomes subject to state legislation. ”