Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/509

repeating, what was then said, we refer to it, as exhibiting our view of the sentiments expressed on this subject by the authors of that work.

§ 1048.

It has been supposed, that a tax on stock comes within the exceptions stated in the case of M'Culloch v. The State of Maryland, We do not think so. The bank of the United States is an instrument, essential to the fiscal operations of the government; and the power, which might be exercised to its destruction, was denied. But property, acquired by that corporation in a state, was supposed to be placed in the same condition with property acquired by an individual. The tax on government stock is thought by this Court to be a tax on the contract, a tax on the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and consequently to be repugnant to the constitution.

§ 1049. It is observable, that these decisions turn upon the point, that no state can have authority to tax an instrument of the United States, or thereby to diminish the means of the United States, used in the exercise of powers confided to it. But there is no prohibition upon any state to tax any bank or other corporation created by its own authority, unless it has restrained itself, by the charter of incorporation, from the power of taxation.^[1] This subject, however, will more properly fall under notice in some future discussions. It may be added, that congress may, without doubt, tax state banks; for it is clearly within the taxing power confided to the general government. When congress tax the chartered institutions of the states, they tax their

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1. Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Peters's R. 514.