Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/385

Rh it, and as the United States courts have again and again expressed it, that "the public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property in order to secure and enjoy the remainder." When, therefore, a State like Massachusetts assesses property situated beyond its territory and jurisdiction, and which its laws are not competent or able to either reach or to protect, or assesses one of its own citizens in respect to such property, the act has no claim to be regarded as taxation, but is simply arbitrary taking, or confiscation, and a procedure which the United States Supreme Court has, at least in the case under consideration, declared to be unconstitutional, and therefore illegal and unwarranted. But the Supreme Court of the United States has placed itself on record before in respect to the principle that protection and taxation are correlative; and in another case, which appears almost wholly to have escaped the attention of the American bar and public, its decision is invested with a historical as well as a legal interest. Thus, in September, 1814, the country being then at war with Great Britain, the town of Castine in Maine was captured by the British, and remained in their exclusive possession until after the ratification of peace, in 1815. During this period the British Government exercised all civil and military authority over the place; established a customhouse, and allowed goods to be imported, which goods remained in Castine after it was evacuated by the enemy. After the re-establishment of the American Government, however, the United States collector of customs, claiming a right to American duties on the goods in question, demanded payment of the same from the owners or importers, and, the claim being resisted, the case went up to the Supreme Court, where Judge Story, then upon the bench, gave judgment for the defendants as follows:

"We are all of the opinion that the claim for duties can not be sustained. By the conquest and military occupation of Castine, the enemy acquired that firm possession which enabled him to exercise the fullest rights of sovereignty over that place. The sovereignty of the United States over the territory was of course suspended, and the laws of the United States could no longer be rightfully enforced there, or be obligatory upon the inhabitants who remained there and submitted to the conquerors. By the surrender, the inhabitants passed under a temporary allegiance to the British Government, and were bound by such laws, and such only, as it chose to recognize and impose. From the nature of the case, no other laws could be obligatory on them; for where there is no protection, or allegiance, or sovereignty, there can be no claim to obedience."

But to return to the subject more immediately under consideration. The court having thus affirmed the situs for the taxation of