CH. XV.]
POWERS OF CONGRESS—COMMERCE.
511
Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/519
Union, is scarcely less, than that of regulating it with foreign states.[1] A very material object of this power is the relief of the states, which import and export through other states, from the levy of improper contributions on them by the latter. If each state were at liberty to regulate the trade between state and state, it is easy to foresee, that ways would be found out to load the articles of import and export, during their passage through the jurisdiction, with duties, which should fall on the makers of the latter, and the consumers of the former.[2] The experience of the American states during the confederation abundantly establishes, that such arrangements could be, and would be made under the stimulating influence of local interests, and the desire of undue gain.[3] Instead of acting as a nation in regard to foreign powers, the states individually commenced a system of restraint upon each other, whereby the interests of foreign powers were promoted at their expense. When one state imposed high duties on the goods or vessels of a foreign power to countervail the regulations of such powers, the next adjoining states imposed lighter duties to invite those articles into their ports, that they might be transferred thence into the other states, securing the duties to themselves. This contracted policy in some of the states was soon counteracted by others. Restraints were immediately laid on such commerce by the suffering states ; and thus a state of affairs disorderly and unnatural grew up, the necessary tendency of which was to destroy the Union itself.[4] The history
