Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/490

 482 every principle of fair dealing requires, that they should be understood to confer it. The practice of the most commercial nations conforms to this idea. Duties, according to dial practice, are charged on those articles only, which are intended for sale or consumption in the country. Thus, sea stores, goods imported and re-exported in the same vessel, goods landed and carried over land for the purpose of being re-exported from some other port, goods forced in by stress of weather, and landed, but not for sale, are exempted from the payment of duties. The whole course of legislation on the subject shows, that, in the opinion of the legislature, the right to sell is connected with the payment of duties.

§ 1023. The counsel for the defendant in error have endeavoured to illustrate their proposition, that the constitutional prohibition ceases the instant the goods enter the country, by an array of the consequences, which they suppose must follow the denial of it. If the importer acquires the right to sell by the payment of duties, he may, they say, exert that right, when, where, and as he pleases; and the state cannot regulate it. He may sell by retail, at auction, or as an itinerant peddler. He may introduce articles, as gun-powder, which endanger a city, into the midst of its population; he may introduce articles, which endanger the public health, and the power of self-preservation is denied. An importer may bring in goods, as plate, for his own use, and thus retain much valuable property exempt from taxation.

§ 1024. These objections to the principle, if well founded, would certainly be entitled to serious consideration. But, we think, they will be found, on examination, not to belong necessarily to the principle, and,