Opinion of the Court. in full on or before the first day of the current month; that you became a delinquent for said taxes on such first day of December; that after the expiration of twenty days from the date of this notice, I, as tax-collector of the upper district of the parish of Orleans, will advertise for sale the movable property on which the said taxes are due in the manner provided by law for judicial sales; that at the principal front door of the court-house, where the Civil District Court of said parish is held, I will sell within the legal hours for judicial sales, for cash and without appraisement, such portion of the said movable property as you shall point out and deliver to me, and in case you shall not point out sufficient property that I will at once and without further delay sell for cash without appraisement the least quantity of said movable property which any bidder will buy for the amount of taxes assessed upon movable property, with interest and costs. Respectfully yours, J. D. HOUSTON, State Tax-Collector, Upper District Parish of Orleans." The defendant answered with a general denial, but admitting the assessment of the tax and the intention to sell the property for payment thereof. The plaintiffs, to sustain the allegations of their petition, produced two witnesses. George F. Rootes testified that he was the general agent and manager of the business of Brown & Jones in New Orleans; that when the assessment complained of was made, the firm had paid the State taxes due upon their capital stock, and had paid State and city licenses to do business for that year; that, at the time of the assessment of the tax in question, the coal upon which it was levied was in the hands of Brown & Jones, as agents for the plaintiffs, for sale, having just arrived from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, by flatboats, and was on said boats in which it arrived and afloat.in the Mississippi River; that it was held by Brown & Jones to be sold for account of the plaintiffs by the boat load, and that since then more than half of it had been exported from this country on foreign steamships and the balance sold into the VOL. CXIV-40 Opinion of the Court. interior of the State for plantation use by the flat-boat load. Samuel S. Brown, one of the plaintiffs, testified that the plaintiffs were the owners of the coal in question; that it was mined in plaintiffs' mine in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; that a tax of two or more mills was paid on it in Pennsylvania as State tax thereon, in the year 1880, being the tax of 1880; that a tax was also paid on it to the County of Allegheny for the year 1880; that it was shipped from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1880, and was received in New Orleans in its original condition and in its original packages, and still owned by the plaintiffs. No other proof was offered in the case. The Louisiana statute of April 9, 1880, Act No. 77, under which the assessment was made, provided as follows: "Section 1st. That for the calendar year 1880, and for each and every succeeding calendar year, there are hereby levied annual taxes, amounting in the aggregate to six mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation hereafter to be made of all property situated within the State of Louisiana, except such as is expressly exempted from taxation by the (State) Constitution." The exemptions from taxation under the Constitution of Louisiana do not affect the question. Upon the case as thus made the District Court of the parish dissolved the injunction and dismissed the suit. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, this judgment was affirmed, and the case is now here by writ of error to the judgment of the Supreme Court. The following errors have been assigned: "The lower court erred in holding: "1st. That the tax in question did not violate Article 4, section 2, clause 1, of the Federal Constitution. "2d. That it did not violate Article 1, section 8, clause 3, of the same instrument. 3d. That it did not violate Article 1, section 10, clause 2, of the same instrument." The clauses here referred to are these: 1. "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Opinion of the Court. 2. "The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." 3. "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." The constitutional questions here presented were argued in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and in what manner the subject was viewed by that court may be seen by the following extracts from its opinion, Brown. v. Houston, 33 La. Ann. 843, filed as part of the judgment. The court said: "First. This act [Act No. 77 of 1880] does not in its terms discriminate against the products of other States or the property of the citizens of other States, but subjects all property liable to taxation found within the State, whether of its own. citizens or citizens of other States, whether imported from other. States or produced here, to the same rate of taxation. "Second. The coal in question was taxed in common with all other property found within the State. We held in the case of City of New Orleans v. Eclipse Towboat Co., recently decided by us, but not reported,*.that the clause in the Federal Constitution giving to Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States had no immediate relation to or necessary connection with the taxing power of a State. Every tax upon property, it is true, may affect more or less the operations of commerce, by diminishing the profits to be derived from the subjects of commerce, but it does not for that reason amount to a regulation of commerce within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, and such is the doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States. State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284, at page 293. "Third. This tax cannot be regarded as a duty or impost levied by the State on imports. To give such a construction *Note by the Court.-The judgment in this case was reversed by this court in Moran v. New Orleans, 112 U. S. 69, 75. Opinion of the Court. to it, and to recognize the alleged prohibition contended for, would create an exemption for all goods and merchandise and property of every kind and description brought into the State for sale or use, and by such construction destroy a main source of revenue to the State. As we had occasion to show in the case referred to, the word 'imports' used in the Constitution has been construed to apply not to property brought or imported from other States of the Union, but solely to imports from foreign countries. Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Pervear v. Commonwealth, 5 Wall. 475, 479. In approaching the consideration of the case we will first take up the last objection raised by the plaintiff in error, namely, that the tax was a duty on imports and exports. It was decided by this court in the case of Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, that the term "imports as used in that clause of the Constitution which declares that "no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports," does not refer to articles carried from one State into another, but only to articles imported from foreign countries into the United States. In that case the City of Mobile had by ordinance, passed in pursuance of its charter, authorized the collection of a tax on real and personal estate, sales at auction, and sales of merchandise, capital employed in business and income within the city. Woodruff and others were auctioneers, and were taxed under this ordinance for sales at auction made by them, including sales of goods, the product of other States than Alabama, received by them as consignees and agents, and sold in the original and unbroken packages; but as the ordinance made no discrimination between sales at auction of goods produced in Alabama and goods produced in other States, the court held that the tax was not unconstitutional. A contrary result must have been reached under the ruling in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, if the constitutional prohibition referred to had been held to include imports from other States as well as imports from foreign countries; for, at the time the tax was laid, the condition of the goods, in reference to their introduction into the State, was precisely the same in one case as in the other. This Opinion of the Court. court, however, after an elaborate examination of the question, held that the terms "imports" and "exports" in the clause under consideration had reference to goods brought from or carried to foreign countries alone, and not to goods transported from one State to another. It is unnecessary, therefore, to consider further the question raised by the plaintiffs in error under their third assignment of errors so far forth, as it is based on the assumption that the tax complained of was an impost or duty on imports. The other assumption made under that assignment, that some of the coal was afterwards exported, and that the tax complained of was therefore pro tanto a duty on exports, is equally untenable. When the petition was filed the coal was lying in New Orleans, in the hands of Brown & Jones, for sale. The petition states this in so many words, and Rootes testifies the same thing, and adds that it was to be sold by the flat-boat load. He also adds that at the time of his examination more than half of it had been exported to foreign countries; but he probably means that it had been sold to steamers sailing to foreign ports for use on the same, and had only been exported in that way. The complainants were not exporters; they did not hold the coal at New Orleans for exportation, but for sale there. Being in New Orleans, and held there on sale, without reference to the destination or use which the purchas ers might wish to make of it, it was taxed in the hands of the owners (or their agents) like all other property in the city, six mills on the dollar. If after this, and after being sold, the purchaser thought proper to put it on board of a steamer bound to foreign parts, that did not alter the character of the taxation so as to convert it from a general tax to a duty on exports. When taxed it was not held with the intent or for the purpose of exportation, but with the intent and for the purpose of sale there, in New Orleans. A duty on exports must either be a duty levied on goods as a condition, or by reason of their exportation, or, at least, a direct tax or duty on goods which are intended for exportation. Whether the last would be a duty on exports, it is not necessary to determine. But certainly, where a general tax is laid on all property alike, |