State v. Hoyt

• Decision Date: 26 January 1899
• Citation: 42 A. 973,71 Vt. 59
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. HOYT.

42 A. 973

71 Vt. 59

STATE

v. HOYT.

Supreme Court of Vermont. Orange.

Jan. 26, 1899.

Exceptions from Orange county court; Start, Judge.

Charles D. Hoyt was indicted for becoming a peddler without a license. From an order overruling defendant's demurrer to the indictment, he excepted. Exceptions sustained.

John H. Watson, for respondent.

Hale K. Darling, State's Atty., for the State.

ROWELL, J. The respondent is indicted for becoming a peddler without a license. The statute on which the indictment is founded provides that a person going from town to town, or from place to place in a town, carrying to sell, or exposing for sale, goods composed in whole or in part of cotton, linen, woolen, or silk, plated or gilded ware, jewelry, patent medicines, or a compound medicine the composition of which is kept secret from the public, watches, or clocks, which are the manufacture of this state; and a person who transports such goods, wares, or merchandise from town to town, or who comes from without the state into a town within the same, bringing such goods, wares, or merchandise, and in a town to which he transports or brings the same temporarily exposes said goods, wares, or merchandise for sale, at auction or otherwise, at a public or a private house, store, or other place, shall be deemed a peddler; and it imposes a fine for becoming a peddler without a license in force, and requires the payment of a license fee, varying in amount from $15 to $60, according to how the licensee travels, and what he carries. V. S. c. 198.

We construe this statute to refer exclusively to the manufactures of this state. This construction is obvious, when compared with it as it was in the Revised Laws. It then expressly included the manufactures of the United States. The language was, "which are the manufactures of the United States," instead of "this state," as now. In other respects it was the same then as now, except it then embraced goods, wares, and merchandise that were the growth or manufacture of a foreign country, and excepted from its operation persons selling goods, wares, or merchandise that were the manufacture of this state, except plated or gilded ware, jewelry, clocks, and watches. But that exception was repealed in 1882, and the inclusion of articles of foreign growth or manufacture was held unconstitutional in State v. Pratt, 59 Vt. 590, 9 Atl. 556, as being a regulation of commerce and an imposition of a duty on imports. For some reason the Vermont Statutes substituted the words "this state" for the words "the United States," thus making the act refer exclusively to the manufactures of this state. Why this was done is not obvious. It may have been because it was thought that it would be uncon stitutional to embrace the manufactures of other states, although put upon the same footing as the manufactures of this state. If so, it was a mistake; for it would have been entirely constitutional, as shown by Machine Co. v. Gage, 100 U. S. 676. It can hardly be supposed that the intention was to discriminate against the manufactures of this state, and yet that is the effect of the statute, if the license fee is to be regarded as a tax upon the goods authorized to be sold; and that it is to be so regarded cannot be questioned. Indeed, we so held in State v. Pratt, above cited. And this is in accord with the decisions of the supreme court of the United States. Thus, in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 425, 444, the question was whether an act of the legislature of Maryland was constitutional that required importers of foreign goods to pay a license tax for selling them in the form and condition in which they were imported. It was contended on the part of the state that the tax was not imposed on the goods, but on the trade and occupation of selling them by wholesale after they were imported, and was laid upon the same principle as the usual taxes upon retailers, innkeepers, hawkers and peddlers, or upon any other trade exercised in the state. But the court said it was impossible to conceal the fact that this mode of taxation was only varying the form without varying the substance; that a tax on the occupation of an importer was a tax on importation, and must add to the price of the article, which must be paid by the consumer, or by the importer himself, the same as a direct tax on the article; and the act was held unconstitutional, as being a duty on imports and a regulation of commerce. So, in Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275, it was held that, when a business or an occupation consists in selling goods, the exaction of a license fee for its pursuit is in effect the imposition of a tax upon the goods themselves; and a statute exacting a license fee from dealers in goods not the product or manufacture of the state, before they could be sold from place to place in the state, was held unconstitutional, as being an unjust discrimination against the products of other states. In that case, as In Brown v. Maryland, it was sought to maintain the act on the ground that it imposed but an occupation tax. The court admitted the power of the states to impose taxes in the way of licenses upon all pursuits and occupations within their limits, but said that the power must be exercised...