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Rh the taxing power of the State; but while remaining the property of the importer, in his warehouse, in the original form or package in which it was imported, a tax upon it is too plainly a duty upon imports to escape the prohibition in the Constitution. The deductions from a contrary rule would be manifestly as follows: "No goods would be imported if none could be sold. The same power that imposes a light duty can impose one that amounts to prohibition. A duty on imports is a tax on the article, which is paid by the consumer. The great importing States would thus levy a tax on the nonimporting States," as was done under articles of the Confederation prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. "This would necessarily produce countervailing measures."

In the case of Brown vs. Maryland, where the latter State, for revenue purposes, required a merchant to take a license and pay fifty dollars before he should be allowed to sell a package of imported goods, the court (by Chief-Justice Marshall) held that this tax, though indirect inform (i. e., a license on the person of the importer), was in fact equivalent to a duty on imports, and therefore illegal; and that the right to import carried with it the right to sell.

This decision has been carefully recognized by the authorities of the several States in dealing with imported liquors under local license acts. "Under its police powers there is no constitutional restraint on a State prohibiting the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits. But a State is at the same time bound to receive and permit the sale by the importer of any article of merchandise which Congress authorizes to be imported, but it is not bound to abstain from the passage of laws which it deems proper to guard the health or morals of its citizens, although the effect of such laws may be to discourage importation, and diminish the profits of the importer and the revenue of the General Government."—Burroughs, On Taxation.

—If the States can not tax the agencies or