John Almy, Jun Plaintiff In Error v. the People of the State of California
| Decision Date | 01 December 1860 |
| Citation | 65 U.S. 169,16 L.Ed. 644,24 How. 169 |
| Parties | JOHN C. ALMY, JUN., PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
THIS case was brought up by writ of error from the Court of Sessions for the city and county of San Francisco, in the State ofCalifornia.
It was a constitutional question entirely, and is stated in the opinion of the court.
It was argued by Mr. Blair for the plaintiff in error, and submitted on a printed argument by Mr. Benjamin for the defendants.
Mr. Blair placed his opposition to the law upon two grounds, viz: 1st, that it imposed a tax upon commerce; 2d, that it amounted to a tax upon exports. As the opinion of the court notices only the latter point, the arguments of the counsel on both sides will be confined to that point. Mr. Blair said:
The law in question is also in violation of the provisions of the Constitution prohibiting the States from taxing exports; and the reasoning of the court in Brown's case is equally applicable to this branch of the case.
The payment required for the license to enable an importer to sell his imports was declared to be a tax on such imports; the court saying that it was 'varying the form without varying the substance,' and 'treating a prohibition which is general as if it were confined to a particular mode of doing the forbidden thing.'
There is even less room for controversy here, as to the application of the prohibition, than in that case. Every export is taxed by an impost on the paper which represents it, and which is indispensable.
Upon this point Mr. Benjamin's argument was as follows:
II. Is a stamp tax on a bill of lading a duty on exports?
It is said to be an indirect tax on exports, because the jury have found 'that it is the usual and invariable custom to make and issue such bills of lading,' &c., and 'no vessel or steamer could practically fill up with, or obtain freight,' unless the matter executes one.
It is submitted that the argument proves quite too much, and if once admitted, would inaugurate a most dangerous system of construction, and under which all right of taxation might be taken away from a State, thus leaving it shorn of powers which were never intended to be abandoned, and which are absolutely indispensable to its existence.
Drays and carts are necessary for loading merchandise on board of ships. 'It is the usual and invariable custom to employ them.' 'No vessel could practically fill up without them.' Cannot a State tax drays and carts?
In Mobile harbor, and many others, large vessels cannot load at all without the aid of lighters. Is the State of Alabama without power to tax lighters?
This law taxes policies of insurance, as well as bills of lading. Scarcely an argument will apply to one class of these papers that will not apply to the other. If everything that operates indirectly to enhance the cost of conveying merchandise is a duty on exports, what State tax could not, by ingenious construction, be demonstrated to have that effect?
Nearly all the States tax foreign insurance agencies established within their borders; to pay their tax, rates of premium must be enhanced. Therefore, the ship-owner who pays this enhanced premium must charge a higher freight to the exporter, and it might hence be argued that the tax was unconstitutional. All such lines of argument are fanciful, dangerous, and subversive of the true meaning of the Constitution.
No man is by the law in question forbidden to ship his gold-dust. He may accompany it. He may send an agent to take care of it; he may make a valid parol contract for its delivery abroad, and take twenty witnesses, in order to retain the evidence of his contract; but, if he wishes to reduce it to writing within the State, he must put his writing on a paper on which the State of California has levied a stamp tax.
It is worthy of notice, that in the draft of the Constitution offered in Convention by Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey, there was an express authority in Congress to raise revenue 'by stamps on paper, vellum, or parchment.'
1 Elliott's Debates, 175.
Yet, notwithstanding the fact that the attention of the Convention was thus specially directed to this precise tax, no attempt was made to inhibit its exercise by the States.
Suppose a State should, as a source of revenue, establish in its own favor a monopoly of the retail traffic within the State in paper, vellum, and parchment, just as some foreign nations do with tobacco; it is obvious that it might thus fix on paper a price far exceeding its value in open market, and fully equal to a stamp tax, and thereby enhance the cost of all written contracts, including bills of lading, invoices, and marine policies; but in what just sense could this be called either a regulation of commerce between the States or a duty on exports?
The great cause of the present alarming crisis in public affairs is the disposition to which men are so prone of construing the Constitution, instead of reading it; of trenching on the rights of States by interpretation, instead of respecting as sacred all such as are not plainly and expressly prohibited.
Now, this power of taxation by a State is that which was most jealously watched, and apprehensions in relation to a check on its exercise formed the chief objection urged against the adoption of the Constitution. The history of all the State Conventions shows this.
The precise point in this case seems to be covered by the very language of the Chief Justice in the passenger cases. Speaking of the State, he s...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Tenn. Wine & Spirits Retailers Ass'n v. Thomas
...between States. See Brown v. Maryland , 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 419, 449, 6 L.Ed. 678 (1827) (Marshall, C. J.); Almy v. California , 65 U.S. (24 How.) 169, 16 L.Ed. 644 (1861). And more recently Woodruff has been questioned. See Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison , 520 U.S. 564, ......
-
Western Union Telegraph Company v. State of Kansas On the Relation of Coleman
...an ordinary bill of lading for property taken out of a state would be a tax on the property covered by that instrument (Almy v. California, 24 How. 169, 16 L. ed. 644); or that a tax on the amount of sales made by an auctioneer would be a tax on the goods sold (Cook v. Pennsylvania, 97 U. S......
-
Galveston, H. & S. A. Ry. Co. v. Davidson
...it was decided that the income from an official position could not be taxed, if the office itself was exempt. In Almy v. California, 65 U. S. (24 How.) 169, 16 L. Ed. 644, it was held that a duty on a bill of lading was the same thing as a duty on the article which it represented. In Northe......
-
Armour Packing Co. v. United States
... ... state, nor gives a preference to the ports of one state ... 4] ... Frank ... Hagerman and John C. Cowin, for plaintiff in error in each ... 1, 5, 6, 100 Am.Dec. 89; People ... v. Burke, 11 Wend. (N.Y.) 129; Hemmaker v ... that court in Almy v. California, 24 How. 169, 16 ... L.Ed. 644, ... ...