Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/355

FEDERAL RESTRAINTS. 327 (i) A^ in Massachusetts, to B, in Massachusetts. There can be no question that a carriage of this character is domestic commerce, and not interstate, and that the same is within the exclusive control of the State. Wabash, St. Louis, & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557. Miller, J., in this case, at page 564, says: — " For instance, a contract might be made to carry goods for a certain price from Cairo to Chicago, or from Chicago to Alton. . . . Both the charge and the actual transportation in such cases are exclusively con- fined to the limits of the territory of the State, and is not commerce among the States, or interstate commerce, but is exclusively commerce within the State. So far, therefore, as this class of transportation, as an element of commerce, is affected by the statute under consideration [a State statute], it is not subject to the constitudonal provision concerning commerce among the States." The court here was speaking of a carriage in Illinois by an Illinois corporation, but the remarks would have held equally true of a carriage in the State by a United States corporation.^ (2) A, in Massachusetts, to B, in Massachusetts, through Ver- mont. A carriage of this character has been decided to be of the same nature as the preceding, and therefore to be State, and not interstate commerce. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co. v. Pennsyl- vania, 145 U. S. 192. The question in issue here was whether a tax by the State of Pennsylvania upon the gross receipts of a Pennsylvania railroad corporation was valid, if such receipts in- cluded the Pennsylvania portion of receipts arising from freight transported between two points in Pennsylvania, but in the course of transit carried through New Jersey. It was admitted, in the de- cision of the court, (contra, however, to the principle of State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284,) that a tax upon gross receipts was the same as a tax based upon the number of tons of merchandise hauled ; and that, if the transportation in question consisted of interstate commerce, it was protected by the Consti- tution from taxation. In other words, the sole issue in the case was whether the facts as established presented a case of interstate commerce, or, to put the inquiry of the court itself, at page 201 : — " Is such intercourse consisting of continuous transportation between two points in the same State made interstate, because in its accomplish- ment some portion of another State may be traversed?" 1 Union Pacific Railway Company v. Goodridge, 149 U. S. 680. See also Stone v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307, 334, 335. 43