Henry Dooley v. United States

Decision Date02 December 1901
Docket NumberNo. 207,207
Citation46 L.Ed. 128,183 U.S. 151,22 S.Ct. 62
PartiesHENRY W. DOOLEY et al., Plffs. in Err. , v. UNITED STATES
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. Henry M. Ward, John G. Carlisle, William Edmond Curtis, William G. Choate, and Joseph Larocque, Jr., for plaintiffs in error.

Solicitor General Richards and Attorney General Griggs for defendant in error.

Statement by Mr. Justice Brown:

This was an action begun in the circuit court as a court of claims by the firm of Dooley, Smith, & Co., to recover duties exacted of them and paid under protest to the collector of the port of San Juan, Porto Rico, upon merchandise imported into that port from the port of New York after May 1, 1900, and since the Foraker act. This act requires all merchandise 'coming into Porto Rico from the United States' to be 'entered at the several ports of entry upon payment of fifteen per centum of the duties which are required to be levied, collected, and paid upon like articles of merchandise imported from foreign countries.' [31 Stat. at L. 77, chap. 191, § 3].

A demurrer was interposed by the district attorney upon the ground that the court had no jurisdiction of the subject of the action, and also that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer to the complaint for insufficiency was sustained, and the petition dismissed.

Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

This case raises the question of the constitutionality of the Foraker act, so far as it fixes the duties to be paid upon merchandise imported into Porto Rico from the port of New York. The validity of this requirement is attacked upon the ground of its violation of that clause of the Constitution (art. 1, § 9) declaring that 'no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.'

While the words 'import' and 'export' are sometimes used to denote goods passing from one state to another, the word 'import,' in connection with the provision of the Constitution that 'no state shall levy any imposts or duties on imports or exports,' was held in Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 19 L. ed. 382, to apply only to articles imported from foreign countries into the United States.

That was an action to recover a tax imposed by the city of Mobile for municipal purposes, upon sales at auction. Defendants, who were auctioneers, received in the course of their business for themselves, or as consignees or agents for others, large amounts of goods and merchandise the products of other states than Alabama, and sold the same in Mobile to purchasers in unbroken and original packages. The supreme court of Alabama decided the case in favor of the tax, and the case came here for review.

The question, as stated by Mr. Justice Miller, was 'whether merchandise brought from other states and sold, under the circumstances stated, comes within the prohibition of the Federal Constitution that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, levy any imposts or duties on imports or exports.' Defendants relied largely upon a dictum in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 6 L. ed. 678, to the effect that the principles laid down in that case as to the nontaxability of imports from foreign countries might perhaps apply equally to importations from a sister state.

In discussing this question, and particularly of the power of Congress to levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, Mr. Justice Miller observed: 'Is the word 'impost,' here used, intended to confer upon Congress a distinct power to levy a tax upon all goods or merchandise carried from one state into another? Or is the power limited to duties on foreign imports? If the former be intended, then the power conferred is curiously rendered nugatory by the subsequent clause of the 9th section, which declares that no tax shall be laid on articles exported from any state, for no article can be imported from one state into another which is not at the same time exported from the former. 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.'

'It is not too much to say that, so far as our research has extended, neither the word 'export,' 'import,' or 'impost' is to be found in the discussion on this subject, as they have come down to us from that time, in reference to any other than foreign commerce, without some special form of words to show that foreign commerce is not meant. . . . Whether we look, then, to the terms of the clause of the Constitution in question, or to its relation to the other parts of that instrument, or to the history of its formation and adoption, or to the comments of the eminent men who took part in those transactions, we are forced to the conclusion that no intention existed to prohibit by this clause' (that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, levy any impost or duty upon any export or import) 'the right of one state to tax articles brought into it from another.' This definition of the word 'impost' was afterwards approved in Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 623, 29 L. ed. 257, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091. See also Fairbank v. United States, 181 U. S. 283, 45 L. ed. 862, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 648.

It follows, and is the logical sequence of the case of Woodruff v. Parham, that the word 'export' should be given a correlative meaning, and applied only to goods exported to a foreign country. Muller v. Baldwin, L. R. 9 Q. B. 457. If, then, Porto Rico be no longer a foreign country under the Dingley act, as was held by a majority of this court in De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1 45 L. ed. 1041, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 743, and Dooley v. United States, 182 U. S. 222, 45 L. ed. 1074, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 762, we find it impossible to say that goods carried from New York to Porto Rico can be considered as 'exported' from New York within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution. If they are neither exports nor imports, they are still liable to be taxed by Congress under the ample and comprehensive authority conferred by the Constitution 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.' Art. 1, § 8.

In another view, however, the case presented by the record is whether a duty laid by Congress upon goods arriving at Porto Rico from New York is a duty upon an export from New York, or upon an import to Porto Rico. The fact that the duty is exacted upon the arrival of the goods at San Juan certainly creates a presumption in favor of the latter theory. At the same time it is possible that it may also be a duty upon an export. The mere fact that the duty is not laid at the port of departure is by no means decisive against its being such. It is too clear for argument that, if vessels bound for a foreign country were compelled to stop at an intermediate port and pay into the Treasury of the United States a duty upon their cargoes, such duty would be a tax upon an export, and the place of its exaction would be of little significance. The manner in which and the place at which the tax is levied are of minor consequence. Thus, in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 6 L. ed. 678, it was held that an act of a state legislature requiring importers of foreign goods to take out a license was a violation of the Constitution declaring that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any impost or duty on imports or exports; and in the recent case of Fairbank v. United States, 181 U. S. 283, 45 L. ed. 862, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 648, we held that a discriminating stamp tax upon bills of lading covering goods to be carried to a foreign country was a tax upon exports within the same provision of the Constitution.

One thing, however, is entirely clear. The tax in question was imposed upon goods imported into Porto Rico, since it was exacted by the collector of the port of San Juan after the arrival of the goods within the limits of that port. From this moment the duties became payable as upon imported merchandise. United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch, 368, 3 L. ed. 128; Arnold v. United States, 9 Cranch, 104, 3 L. ed. 671; Meredith v. United States, 13 Pet. 486, 10 L. ed. 258. Now, while an import into one port almost necessarily involves a prior export from another, still, in determining the character of the tax imposed, it is important to consider whether the duty be laid for the purpose of adding to the revenues of the country from which the export takes place, or for the benefit of the territory into which they are imported. By the 3d section of the Foraker act, imposing duties upon merchandise coming into Porto Rico from the United States, it is declared that 'whenever the legislative assembly of Porto Rico shall have enacted and put into operation a system of local taxation to meet the necessities of the government of Porto Rico, by this act established, and shall by resolution duly passed so notify the President, he shall make proclamation thereof, and thereupon all tariff duties on merchandise and articles going into Porto Rico from the United States or coming into the United States from Porto Rico shall cease, and from and after such date all such merchandise and articles shall be entered at the several ports of entry free of duty.' And by § 4, 'the duties and taxes collected in Porto Rico in pursuance of this act, less the cost of collecting the same and the gross amount of all collections of duties and taxes in the United States upon articles of merchandise coming from Porto Rico, shall not be covered into the general fund of the Treasury, but shall be held as a separate fund, and shall be placed at the disposal of the President to be used for the government and benefit of Porto Rico until the government of Porto...

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