622
Thomas, J., dissenting
goods shipped both to other States and abroad. One writer, for example, urged his fellow Connecticut citizens to manufacture stockings in sufficient quantity not only for the supply of Connecticut "but for exportation to other States" as well. Letter from "A. C.," Massachusetts Centinel, Sept. 5, 1787, p. 1, col. 1, reprinted from New Haven Gazette (emphasis added). Another argued that Connecticut could enrich itself "[b]y making and refining Cyder for exportation with which we might supply the Southern States, as well as the large provinces of Quebec and Nova-Scotia." Connecticut Farmer, New-Haven Gazette, Oct. 6, 1785, p. 2, col. 3 (second and third emphases added).
More significantly, the early statute books are replete with examples of these commonplace 18th-century understandings of the terms "import" and "export." The Virginia cheese-duty Act of October 1786, for example, provided for a duty of "three pence a pound on all cheese . . . imported into this commonwealth." 12 Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, ch. 29, § 2, p. 289 (emphasis added). As complaints published in New England newspapers indicate, that duty was imposed on cheese produced by the New England States. See Salem [Mass.] Mercury, Mar. 3, 1787, p. 2, col. 2. Moreover, the duty was but one of many imposed by Virginia, which had for some time, it seems, "imposed like duties upon the importation of New-England rum, Lynn [Mass.] Shoes, Cheese, Cordage, and a variety of other articles manufactured in the Eastern States." Independent Chronicle [Boston], Apr. 19, 1787, p. 3, col. 2; see 11 Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, ch. 8, § 8, pp. 121-122 (Oct. 1782) (imposing a tonnage duty "on all vessels . . . from or to foreign parts, or from or to any of the United States," and an impost duty on goods "imported or brought into this commonwealth . . . from any port or place whatsoever").
col. 4 (complaint about legislation pending in Georgia—later adopted— taxing "all goods imported into the back part of that state from South Carolina").
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