IV. THE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION WHICH DECLARES THAT DUTIES, IMPOSTS, AND EXCISES SHALL BE UNIFORM THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT APPLY TO NOR GOVERN THESE CASES, BECAUSE THE TERM "UNITED STATES," AS THERE USED, MEANS ONLY THE TERRITORY COMPRISED WITHIN THE SEVERAL STATES OF THE UNION, AND WAS INTENDED ONLY FOR THEIR BENEFIT AND PROTECTION, AND NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OR PROTECTION OF OUTSIDE TERRITORY BELONGING TO THE NATION; IN THE LATTER SENSE DUTIES ON IMPORTS FROM THESE ISLANDS ARE UNIFORM THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, BECAUSE THEY ARE UNIFORMLY IMPOSED AT EVERY PORT IN THE UNITED STATES, SO THAT THERE IS NO PREFERENCE GIVEN TO THE PORTS OF ONE STATE OVER THOSE OF ANOTHER, NOR IS ANY INEQUALITY BETWEEN THE SEVERAL STATES CREATED. PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION. Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution is as follows: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." Other provisions of the Constitution to be considered in association with the foregoing are these: "No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken. "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. "No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. "No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. "No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage." MEANINGS OF THE TERM "UNITED STATES." This designation is first used in the Declaration of Independence, is continued in the Articles of Confederation, and in the present Constitution. It has different significations, according to the connection and the sense in which it is used. It may signify: 1. The corporate name of the nation or governmental entity, the same as was provided in the Articles of Confederation, which declared "the stile of this Confederacy shall be the United States of America." 2. The States united--referring to the several States composing the Union. In this sense, of course, it excludes Territories. 3. The international sense, designating the extent of our domain as a sovereign nation. In this sense it includes all territory under our dominion wherein no other nation has sovereignty even such as may be under our control by temporary conquest, as Tampico, Mexico, during the Mexican war (Fleming v. Page); while in a domestic sense it includes geographically the States of the Union and such territory as the President and Senate have by treaties expressly annexed to and made part of the United States, and such as Congress and the President, by act or resolution, have expressly annexed to and made part of the United States, as the Hawaiian Islands. Under the first head are classed such expressions as: The Treasury of the United States, Service of the United States, Coin of the United States, Seat of government of the United States, President of the United States, Government of the United States, Office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States, Office under the authority of the United States, Credit of the United States. Under the second head are such expressions as: We, the people of the United States, Senate of the United States, To establish a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on Time of choosing electors, etc., to be the same throughout the Duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the THE SOURCE OF POLITICAL POWER. All the authority of the United States is derived from the people of the States. The people of the Territories do not and can not share or contribute to that authority. The people of the States alone elect Congressmen; the States choose Senators and electors. Congress alone, composed of Senators and Representatives from the States, can make laws for the government of the whole nation. No Territorial legislature can possibly be empowered to legislate for any portion of the United States. Government by the people under our system means by the people of the several States. A republican form of government is guaranteed to the States, but not to Territories. Outside the area of the United States considered as a union of States there is no political power, no guaranty of republican government, no pledge against local discriminations by way of port charges, or regulations of commerce, or revenue, or tax on exports; nor any rule of uniformity as to duties, imposts, and excises. The judicial power of the United States as defined by the Constitution does not extend to territory. Territorial courts are established under the clause which authorizes Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States. Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Peters, 511; In Hepburn v. Ellzey (2 Cranch, 445, 1805), Chief Justice Marshall held that a citizen of the District of Columbia could not maintain an action as a citizen of a State within the meaning of the Constitution against a citizen of Virginia. In support of the jurisdiction Mr. Lee insisted that to give the term State a limited construction would deprive the citizens of the District of general rights of citizens of the United States and put them in a worse condition than aliens. He put the question whether in view of the provision that "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State" Congress can lay a tax or duty on articles exported from the District; and also whether Congress can constitutionally give a preference to the ports of the District. The Chief Justice said, page 452: "But as the act of Congress obviously uses the word 'State' in reference to that term as used in the Constitution, it becomes necessary to inquire whether Columbia is a State in the sense of that instrument. The result of that examination is a conviction that the members of the American confederacy only are the States contemplated in the Constitution. "The House of Representatives is to be composed of members chosen by the people of the several States; and each State shall have at least one representative. "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State. "Each State shall appoint, for the election of the Executive, a number of electors equal to its whole number of Senators and Representatives. 66 These clauses show that the word State is used in the Constitution as designating a member of the Union, and excludes from the term the signification attached to it by writers on the law of nations." In New Orleans v. Winter (1 Wheaton, 90, 1816) it was held that a citizen of the Mississippi Territory could not sue a citizen of a State. Chief Justice Marshall said, page 93: "It has has been attempted to distinguish a Territory from the District of Columbia, but the court is of opinion that this distinction can not be maintained. They may differ in many respects, but neither of them is a State in the sense in which that term is used in the Constitution." In the recent case of Hooe v. Jamieson (166 U. S., 395), Chief Justice Fuller followed Chief Justice Marshall, saying, page 307: "We see no reason for arriving at any other conclusion_than that announced by Chief Justice Marshall in Hepburn v. Ellzey (2 Cranch, 445), February term, 1805, that the members of the American confederacy only are the States contemplated in the Constitution;' that the District of Columbia is not a State within the meaning of that instrument; and that the courts of the United States have no jurisdiction of cases between citizens of the District of Columbia and citizens of a State." THE REASON FOR UNIFORMITY IN DUTIES AND EXCISES. The reason for requiring uniformity in duties, imposts, and excises among the several States was and is apparent. Historically, it is estab lished to have been for the purpose of protecting States from discriminations by Congress which would operate unfairly or injuriously on some States and not equally so on others. This guaranty of uniformity was one of the considerations held out to the States to induce them to accept the new Constitution. It was not a personal but a local guaranty, operating not as a privilege and guard to individuals, but to States considered as organized constituents of the Union. Hence reasons for applying it to Territories are wanting. All legislation for Territories being enacted by the Congress chosen by the States, and the Territory being the property of the United States, all the States are equally advantaged by whatever is done toward the regulation of such Territories. They belong to the people of the United States, not to the people of the Territories, and the people of the United States, through their Congress and President, govern them for the equal benefit of all the States. The imposition of duties on goods imported from Porto Rico is equally applied at all ports of the United States, and goods of all persons, whether citizens of this Union, citizens of Porto Rico, or absolute aliens, are alike subjected to our tariff laws when brought from Porto Rico into the United States. The plaintiffs in error are burdened with no charge which would not be equally exacted of every other person seeking to bring in the same articles from the same place. Knowlton v. Moore. In the recent case of Knowlton v. Moore, this court held that the object intended to be provided for by the rule of uniformity imposed upon the power to levy duties, imposts, and excises was the prevention of possible discrimination against one or more of the several States composing the United States. (178 U. S., 41, 89.) In the opinion in this case the history of this section of the Constitution is minutely traced. The various forms in which the prevailing idea of uniformity between the States was expressed in recommendations to the Continental Congress, and in resolutions introduced therein; in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1787; and in the interpretation and comments upon this clause made pending the adoption of the Constitution by the several States, were reviewed. "The paralysis which the Articles of Confederation produced upon the Continental Congress because of the want of power in that body to enforce necessary taxation to sustain the Government needs no more than statement. And the proceedings of the Congress during the Confederation afford abundant evidence of the constant effort which was made to overcome this situation by attempts to obtain authority from the States for Congress to levy taxes deemed by it essential, and thus relieve it from the embarrassment occasioned by the fact that all demands for revenue depended for fulfillment wholly upon the action of the respective States. Despite the constant agitation as to the subject and the abundant discussions which took place in relation to it during the period of the Confederation, in the whole of the proceedings not a word can be found which can give rise to even the sugges tion that there was then any thought of restraining the taxing power with reference to the intrinsic operation of a tax upon individuals. On the contrary, the sole and the only question which was ever present and in every form was discussed, was the operation of any taxing power which might be granted to Congress upon the respective States; in other words, the discrimination as regards States which might arise from a greater or lesser proportion of any tax being paid within the geographical limits of a particular State." (178 U. S., 95.) "The proceedings of the Continental Congress also make it clear that the words, uniform throughout the United States,' which were afterwards inserted in the Constitution of the United States, had, prior to its adoption, been frequently used, and always with reference purely to a geographical uniformity and as synonymous with the expression, 'to operate generally throughout the United States.'" (Id., 96.) On March 11, 1783, a vote was taken in Congress upon the following question: "Shall any taxes, to operate generally throughout the States, be recommended by Congress other than duties on foreign commerce?" A resolution introduced by James Madison in the Virginia house of delegates, in 1784, proposed that delegates from Virginia should be instructed to propose in Congress a recommendation to the States of the Union to authorize that assembly to regulate their trade on principles and under qualifications stated in the following paragraphs: 666 First. That the United States in Congress assembled be authorized to prohibit vessels belonging to any foreign nation from entering any of the ports thereof, or to impose any duties on such vessels and their cargoes which may be judged necessary; all such prohibitions and duties to be uniform throughout the United States, and the proceeds of the latter to be carried into the treasury of the State within which they shall accrue. 666 'Second. That no State be at liberty to impose duties on any goods, wares or merchandise, imported, by land or by water, from any other State, but may altogether prohibit the importation from any State of any particular species or description of goods, wares or merchandise, of which the importation is at the same time prohibited from all other places whatsoever.' "It will be noticed that the words "uniform throughout the United States' are the same which were subsequently adopted in the clause of the Constitution under consideration, and that the term uniformity, in the resolution of Mr. Madison, was applied not only to duties, but to regulations and prohibitions respecting external commerce, which were designed to be the same all over the Union." (178 U. S., 100.) On August 25, 1787, the following occurred in the Constitutional Convention (178 U. S., 103): "Mr. Carroll and Mr. L. Martin expressed their apprehensions, and the probable apprehensions of their constituents, that, under the power of regulating trade, the general legislature might favor the ports of particular States, by requiring vessels destined to or from other States to enter and clear thereat, as vessels belonging or bound to Baltimore to enter and clear at Norfolk, etc. They moved the following proposition: "The legislature of the United States shall not oblige vessels belonging to citizens thereof, or to foreigners, to enter or pay |