Opinion of the Court. cially interfered with unless it was clearly shown that the same was erroneous; and, even then, such errors would not present a Federal question for our consideration. Nor can we consider the further contention that portions of the business which were made the basis of the assessment were improperly treated as business of the corporation, whereas they should have been regarded as pertaining to the personal transactions of Mr. Clay, the company's agent. The true relation of Mr. Clay to the corporation's business was one of fact, in respect to which a hearing was afforded to the corporation, and this court is in no position to enter into such an inquiry. Again, it is said that, even assuming that the importation of crude drugs and their sale in the original packages constituted a portion of the corporate business, no tax could be imposed by the State under the doctrine of Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419. But that case is inapplicable. Here no tax is sought to be imposed directly on imported articles or on their sale. This is a tax imposed on the business of a corporation, consisting in the storage and distribution of various kinds of goods, some products of their own manufacture and some imported articles. From the very nature of the tax, being laid as a tax upon the franchise of doing business as a corporation, it cannot be affected in any way by the character of the property in which its capital stock is invested. Society for Savings v. Coite, 6 Wall. 594; Provident Institution v. Massachusetts, 6 Wall. 611; Pembina Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181; Ilome Insurance Co. v. New York, 134 U. S. 594. When a corporation of one State, whose business is that of a common carrier, transacts part of that business in other States, difficult questions have arisen, and this court has been called upon to decide whether certain taxing laws of the respective States infringe upon the freedom of interstate com It has been found difficult to prescribe a satisfactory rule whereby the public burdens of taxation can be justly apportioned between the business and agencies of such a corporation in different States, and the subject has been much Opinion of the Court. discussed in several recent cases. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530; Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, &c. Railway v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421; Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 18; Adams Express Co. v. Ohio, 165 U. S. 194. It is not necessary in this case to enter into a subject so difficult, but the cases are referred to as showing the distinction between corporations organized to carry on interstate commerce, and having a quasi-public character, and corporations organized to conduct strictly private business. The corporation concerned in the present litigation is of the latter character, and the case comes within the doctrine of Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, and of subsequent cases affirming that one. Horn Silver Mining Co. v. New York, 143 U. S. 305, may be specially mentioned, as it involved a similar question and the same statutes which are before us in the present case. The Horn Silver Mining Company was a corporation of the Territory of Utah, where it carried on a mining and manufacturing business. It also carried on business in the State of New York, and was there subjected to an annual tax upon its corporate franchise or business, as prescribed in the statute of the State of New York. The company refusing to pay the tax, proceedings to enforce its payment were resorted to, which resulted in the case being brought to this court, where some of the questions raised in the present case were considered and determined. The conclusions reached were that the law in question did not tax property not within the State; nor regulate interstate commerce; nor deny to the corporation the equal protection of the laws; nor impose a tax beyond the constitutional power of the State. It is said that the operation of that portion of this taxing law which exempts from a business tax corporations which are wholly engaged in manufacturing within the State of New York, is to encourage manufacturing corporations which seek to do business in that State to bring their plants into New York. Such may be the tendency of the legislation, but so long as the privilege is not restricted to New York corpora Dissenting Opinion: Harlan, Brown, JJ. tions, it is not perceived that thereby any ground is afforded to justify the intervention of the Federal courts. The judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of New York is accordingly Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE BROWN, dissenting. It seems to me that the opinion and judgment in this case are not in harmony with former decisions of this court. The comptroller of New York has imposed upon the plaintiff in error, a Michigan corporation doing business in New York, an annual tax for the year 1894 and the preceding five years, upon the sum of $90,000" as capital employed" in the latter State. The authority for this tax was found in a statute of New York providing that "every corporation, joint stock company, or association whatever, now or hereafter incorporated, organized or formed under, by or pursuant to law in this State or in any other State or country, and doing business in this State, except only savings banks and institutions for savings, life insurance companies, banks, foreign insurance companies, manufacturing or mining corporations or companies wholly engaged in carrying on manufactures or mining ores within this State, and agricultural and horticultural societies or associations, which exceptions, however, shall not include gas companies, trust companies, electric or steam heating, lighting and power companies, shall be liable to and shall pay a tax, as a tax upon its franchise or business, into the state treasury annually, to be computed as follows," etc. Laws of N. Y., 1889, June 4, c. 353, p. 467. The goods sold by the plaintiff in error, by its agents in New York, are manufactured in the State of Michigan. If the plaintiff had been wholly engaged in carrying on manufacture in New York it would have been exempted by the statute from the taxes in question. So that the question in this case is, whether it is competent for New York to impose a tax upon the franchise or business Dissenting Opinion: Harlan, Brown, JJ. of manufacturing corporations or companies, foreign or domes- ¦ tic, not "wholly engaged" in carrying on manufacture within its limits, while at the same time it exempts from such taxation like corporations or companies wholly engaged in carrying on manufactures in that State. Is not such legislation an injurious discrimination against the manufacturing business and the manufactured goods of other States, in favor of the manufacturing business and the manufactured goods of New York, which is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States? Let us see. The question presented for consideration is of such importance as to justify an extended reference to our former decisions. In Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 140, it was contended that a provision in the charter of the city of Mobile, Alabama, authorizing the collection of a tax on sales at auction, was invalid in its application to auctioneers who sold in that State in the original packages goods and merchandise the product of States other than Alabama. This court said: "The case before us is a simple tax on sales of merchandise, imposed alike upon all sales made in Mobile, whether the sales be made by a citizen of Alabama or of another State, and whether the goods sold are the produce of that State or of some other. There is no attempt to discriminate injuriously against the products of other States or the rights of their citizens, and the case is not therefore an attempt to fetter commerce among the States, or to deprive the citizens of other States of any privilege or immunity possessed by citizens of Alabama. But a law having such operation would, in our opinion, be an infringement of the provisions of the Constitution which relate to those subjects, and therefore void." At the same term of the court Hinson v. Lott, 8 Wall. 148, 150, 151, 152, was decided. That case involved the validity of a statute of Alabama declaring that "before it shall be lawful for any dealer or dealers in spirituous liquors to offer any such liquors for sale within the limits of this State, such dealer or dealers introducing any such liquors into the State for sale shall first pay the tax collector of the county into which such liquors are introduced, a tax of fifty cents per Dissenting Opinion: Harlan, Brown, JJ. gallon upon each and every gallon thereof." This court said: "If this section [the one just quoted] stood alone in the legislation of Alabama on the subject of taxing liquors, the effect of it would be that all such liquors brought into the State from other States and offered for sale, whether in the original casks by which they came into the State, or by retail in smaller quantities, would be subject to a heavy tax, while the same class of liquors manufactured in the State would escape the tax. It is obvious that the right to impose any such discriminating tax, if it exist at all, cannot be limited in amount, and that a tax under the same authority can as readily be laid which would amount to an absolute prohibition to sell liquors introduced from without, while the privilege would remain unobstructed in regard to articles made in the State. If this can be done in reference to liquors, it can be done with reference to all the products of a sister State, and in this mode one State can establish a complete system of non-intercourse in her commercial relations with all the other States of the Union." Again: "But while the case has been argued here with a principal reference to the supposed prohibition against taxing imports, it is to be seen from the opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama delivered in this case, that the clause of the Constitution which gives to Congress the right to regulate commerce among the States was supposed to present a serious objection to the validity of the Alabama statute. Nor can it be doubted that a tax which so seriously affects the interchange of commodities between the States as to essentially impede or seriously interfere with it, is a regulation of commerce. And it is also true, as conceded in that opinion, that Congress has the same right to regulate commerce among the States that it has to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and that whenever it exercises that power all conflicting state laws must give way, and that if Congress had made any regulation covering the matter in question we need inquire no further. That court seems to have relieved itself of the objection by holding that the tax imposed by the State of Alabama was an exercise of the concurrent right of regulating commerce remaining with the State until some regulation on the subject had been made |