624
Thomas, J., dissenting
In fact, when state legislators of the founding generation intended to limit the term "imports" only to goods of foreign origin, they were quite adept at so indicating. See id., at 269 (provision regarding merchants "who shall import annually into [New London or New Haven] from Europe, Asia or Africa, Goods, Wares and Merchandise, the Growth, Produce or Manufacture of said Countries"); id., at 270 (setting duties for "Goods imported into this State from any Foreign Port, Island or Plantation not within any of The United States"); 2 New York Laws, ch. 7, p. 12 (1886) (Act of Nov. 18, 1784, setting duties for certain "articles imported from Europe"). Thus, based on this common 18th-century usage of the words "import" and "export," and the lack of any textual indication that the Clause was intended to apply exclusively to foreign goods, it seems likely that those who drafted the Constitution sought, through the Import-Export Clause, to prohibit States from levying duties and imposts on goods imported from, or exported to, other States as well as foreign nations, and that those who ratified the Constitution would have so understood the Clause.
Our Civil War era decision in Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123 (1869), of course, held that the Import-Export Clause applied only to foreign trade. None of the parties to these proceedings have challenged that holding, but given that the common 18th-century understanding of the words used in the Clause extended to interstate as well as foreign trade, it is
largely redundant and, to the extent they refer to different activities, the distinction in the phrase is not between foreign goods "imported" into Connecticut, on the one hand, and other States' goods "brought" into Connecticut, on the other, but between goods of both kinds—domestic and foreign—commercially "imported" in quantity and those "brought" in limited quantities by individuals in their own baggage. Compare 1784 Conn. Acts and Laws, at 272 (using the phrase "imported or brought" when referring both to a ship's cargo and to the "Baggage of Passengers"), with id., at 273 (using only the word "imported" when referring solely to the ship's cargo).
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