Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/524

tax upon importers, importing goods from foreign countries, or from other states. It is wholly immaterial, whether the tax be laid on the goods imported, or on the person of the importer. In each case, it is a restriction of the right of commerce, not conceded to the states. As the power of congress to regulate commerce reaches the interior of a state,^[1] it might be capable of authorizing the sale of the articles, which it introduces. Commerce is intercourse; and one of its most ordinary ingredients is traffic. It is inconceivable, that the power to authorize traffic, when given in the most comprehensive terms, with the intent, that its efficacy should be complete, should cease at the point, when its continuance is indispensable to its value. To what purpose should the power to allow importation be given, unaccompanied with the power to authorize the sale of the thing imported? Sale is the object of importation; and it is an essential ingredient of that intercourse, of which importation constitutes a part. As congress has the right to authorize importation, it must have a right to authorize the importer to sell. What would be the language of a foreign government, which should be informed, that its merchants after importation were forbidden to sell the merchandize imported? What answer could the United States give to the complaints and just reproaches, to which such extraordinary conduct would expose them? No apology could be received, or offered. Such a state of things would annihilate commerce. It is no answer, that the tax may be moderate; for, if the power exists in the states, it may be carried to any extent they may choose. If it does

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1. 9 Wheaton's R. 197 to 204.