Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/261

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?0? U. & MoodY, $., d?enth? tibnal. The law is not sustained by the judgment of the court as an inspection law, which it purports to be. Perhaps it could not be under the doctrine announced and applied in Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U.S. 313, and Brimmet v. Rdrman, 138 U.S. 78. I am therefore relieved from considering whether the law, because it is a mere cloak for exacting revenue from interstate commerce, is bad a? an inspection law. The judgment of the court treats it as such, and it is sustained not as an inspection 5ut as a revenue law. I do not dissent from such an inter- Pretation of its effect. But, with unfeigned deference to the opinions of my brethren, I venture to think that the statute, as enforced in the case at bar, is bad as a taxing law. The case of American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U.S. 500, holds that articles before they have ceased to be the subjectz of inter- state commerce may still be reached by the taxing power of the State. Accordingly.it was held that the property of a citizen of another State which had been brought into the State of Tennessee, placed in a warehouse for sale, and from there sold to persons within as well as without the State, was subject to a state tax. It was observed in the opinion in that case that the �.property had come to rest in the State and was enjoying the protection of its laws. But the case at bar, so far as it concerns the oil in tank No. 1, to which I confine my observations, is sharply distinguished from that case. The judgment here takes a step forward which ? think ought not to be taken. The oil in that tank had been sold while in Pennsylvania and Ohio -to purchasers in other States than Tennessee, before it started in the course of interstate transportation. It was shipped especially in pursuance of such sales. It was in Tennessee only momentarily ("a few days"), for the purpose of repacking and reshipping it, and for no other purpose whatever. The delay was to meet the exigencies of interstate commerce, which arose out of the nature of the transaction. It does not seem to me important, if such be the case, that it would begin the remainder of its interstate journey under a new contract of shipment. It would no more seem to be the subject of. state taxation than