Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 75 (1997)

Page:   Index   Previous  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  Next

638

CAMPS NEWFOUND/OWATONNA, INC. v. TOWN OF HARRISON

Thomas, J., dissenting

Michelin, 423 U. S., at 287 ("[I]mposts and duties . . . are essentially taxes on the commercial privilege of bringing goods into a country"). Because the tax at issue here is levied on real property—property that cannot possibly have been "imported"—the tax would not seem to fit within any of the commonly accepted definitions of "impost."

"Duty," however, though frequently used like "impost" to denote "money paid for custom of goods," An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, supra, does not appear to have been limited to taxes assessed at portside. See, e. g., S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (7th ed. 1785) ("Duty . . . Tax; impost; custom; toll. All the wines make their way through several duties and taxes, before they reach the port" (second emphasis added)); 2 Elliot 331 (John Williams, New York ratifying convention) (noting that Congress' Art. I, § 8, power "extend[s] to duties on all kinds of goods, to tonnage and poundage of vessels, to duties on written instruments, newspapers, almanacs, &c"). In fact, "imposts" seems to have been viewed as a particular subclass of duties; the fact that the two words are used disjunctively in the Import-Export Clause suggests, therefore, that something broader than portside customs was within the constitutional prohibition.

Because of the somewhat ambiguous usage of the words "duty" and "impost," Luther Martin inquired of their meaning during the Convention. James Wilson, a member of the

king's revenue; for that that he wins in the hundred, he loseth in the shire. Bacon's Essays"); Barclay's Universal English Dictionary 471 (B. Woodward rev. 1782) ("Impost. A toll; custom paid for goods or merchandise"); T. Blount, A Law-Dictionary (1670) ("Impost Tribute, Tallage, or Custom; but more particularly it is that Tax which the King receives for such merchandises as are imported into any Haven, from other Nations. . . . And it may be distinguished from Custom, which is rather that profit which the King raises from Wares exported; but they are sometimes confounded"); cf. 7 Oxford English Dictionary 733 (2d ed. 1989) ("[I]mpost . . . A tax, duty, imposition, tribute; spec. a customs-duty levied on merchandise. Now chiefly Hist").

Page:   Index   Previous  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007