Cite as: 520 U. S. 564 (1997)
Thomas, J., dissenting
as the property was not owned by "the United States, or either of them." 14
The Woodruff Court next turned to the use of the words "duty" and "import" in the Continental Congress. The Court noted that the Continental Congress recommended that the States give it permission to levy a duty of five percent on all "foreign merchandise imported into the country," and that, though "imperfectly . . . preserved," the debates in the Congress "are full of the subject of the injustice done by the States who had good seaports, by duties levied in those ports on foreign goods designed for States who had no such ports." Id., at 134.
There is, of course, no question that the ability of seaport States to tax the foreign imports of their neighbors was a source of discord between the States, and continued to be so through the Constitutional Convention itself. In order to support its contention, however, the Woodruff Court was obligated to show not merely that the words "duty," "impost," and "imports" were used in reference to foreign goods, but
14 Indeed, some New Englanders apparently believed that the Virginia duty on New England cheese, see supra, at 622, was contrary to Article IV's provision that "no imposition, duties or restriction, shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them." 1 Stat. 4. See Salem [Mass.] Mercury, Mar. 3, 1787. The general view of the Clause, however, and certainly the view of the several States that imposed duties on interstate trade, see supra, at 622-623, was that it applied only to goods actually owned by the States, not to goods grown or manufactured within them. See Salem [Mass.] Mercury, Mar. 3, 1787 ("[T]he proper construction of that part of the Articles of Confederation is, that no state in the union shall lay a tax on publick property imported therein—for, be it remembered, Congress were, at the time the Confederation was formed, exporters of almost every necessary for carrying on the war, & the clause alluded to was intended to prevent any individual state from laying a duty on those necessary supplies"); see also 12 Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, ch. 40, § 3, pp. 304-305 (Oct. 1786) (distinguishing between articles "which are the property of the United States, or either of them," and articles "which shall be proved to be of the growth, produce or manufacture of the State from which they shall be imported").
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