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posed by the State upon its own citizens. Comprehensive as the power of the States is to lay and collect taxes and excises, it is nevertheless clear, in the judgment of the court, that the power cannot be exercised to any extent in a manner forbidden by the Constitution; and, inasmuch as the Constitution provides that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, it follows that the defendant might lawfully sell or offer or expose for sale within the district prescribed in the indictment any goods which the permanent residents of the State might sell or offer or expose for sale in that district, without being subjected to any higher tax or excise than that exacted by law of such permanent residents."

§ 100. Political Privileges.

The interstate comity clause of the federal Constitution does not compel the several States to grant to resident citizens of the other States immediately upon their entrance into the State the political privileges extended to their own citizens. This the Supreme Court has held from the very beginning and has recently reaffirmed in the case of Blake v. McClung." "A State," says the court in that case, "may by rule uniform in its operation as to citizens of the several States, require residence within its limits for a given time before a citizen of another State who becomes a resident thereof shall exercise the right of suffrage or become eligible to office. It has never been supposed that regulations of that character materially interfered with the enjoyment by citizens of each State of the privileges and immunities secured by the Constitution to citizens of the several States. The Constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective States as will substantially or practically put a citizen of one State in a condition of alienage when he is within or removes to another State, or when asserting in another State the rights that commonly appertain to those who are part of the political community known as the People of the United States, by and for whom the Government of the Union was ordained and established."

9 172 U. S. 239; 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 165; 43 L. ed. 432.

Finally, it is to be said, the several States may impose upon non-residents such special limitations and obligations as are, in aim and effect, not discriminative but reasonably necessary for the protection of their own citizens from fraud, disease, or injury of any sort. Thus, as an example, though the citizens of other States may not be forbidden to sue in the courts of the State, they may be required to give bonds for costs not exacted of residents.1

In connection with this police power of the States a difficult question is raised as to the constitutionality of laws conditioning the exercise of certain professions, such as law, medicine, and dentistry upon residence in the State for specified periods of time. There is no question but that the State in the legitimate exercise of its police power may require evidence of good character or sufficient technical attainments of all persons desiring to practice these professions. A certain period of residence in the State may, therefore, possibly be a proper requirement, in order that the applicant's moral character and general attainments may be learned, but it would seem that if this required period be made unnecessarily long, it might be held that non-residents are unduly discriminated against. We have, however, no cases in which this position has been taken.

§ 101. State Proprietary Privileges.

In McCready v. Virginia" the important limitation of the clause was established that a citizen of one State is not, of constitutional right, entitled to share upon equal terms with the citi

10 in Chemung Canal Bank v. Lowery (93 U. S. 72; 23 L. ed. 806) it was held that a Wisconsin statute was not in violation of the equal privileges clause because it provided that when a defendant to a suit was out of the State, the statute of limitations should not run against a resident plaintiff, but that it should if he were a non-resident. The court held that this was a reasonable provision. "If," said the court, "the statute does not run as between non-resident creditors and their debtors, it might often happen that a right of action would be extinguished, perhaps for years, in the State where the parties reside; and yet, if the defendant should be found in Wisconsin, it may be only in a railroad train, a suit could be sprung upon him after the elaim had been forgotten. The laws of Wisconsin would thus be used as a trap to catch the unwary defendant after the laws which had always governed the case had barred any recovery." This reasoning seems hardly convincing. D4 U. S. 391; 24 L. ed. 248.

zens of another State those proprietary interests which may be said to belong generally to that State as such. This case involved the right of cultivating oysters on beds of the tide waters of the State. The court in its opinion say: "We think we may safely hold that the citizens of one State are not invested by this clause of the Constitution with any interest in the common property of the citizens of another State." 12

§ 102. Privileges of One State Not Carried into Other States.

The comity clause does not entitle a citizen within his own State to privileges and immunities which may be granted by other States to their citizens. In other words, it does not require that when a right is granted by any one of the States of the Union to its citizens, it thereby becomes a right which all the other States must grant to their citizens. This claim, extreme as it may appear, was raised in McKane v. Durston13 but negatived

12 The opinion continues: “If Virginia had by law provided for the sale of its once vast public domain, and a division of the proceeds among its own people, no one, we venture to say, would contend that the citizens of other States had a constitutional right to the enjoyment of this privilege of Virginia citizenship. Neither if, instead of selling, the State had appropriated the same property to be used as a common by its people for the purposes of agriculture, could the citizens of other States avail themselves of such a privilege. And the reason is obvious; the right thus granted is not a privilege or immunity of general but of special citizenship. It does not belong of right to the citizens of all free government,' but only to the citizens of Virginia, on account of the peculiar circumstances in which they are placed. They, and they alone, owned the property to be sold or used, and they alone had the power to dispose of it as they saw fit. They owned it not by virtue of citizenship merely, but of citizenship and domicile united; that is to say, by virtue of a citizenship confined to that particular locality. The planting of oysters in the soil covered by water owned in common by the People of the State is not different in principle from that of planting corn upon dry land held in the same way. Both are for the purpose of cultivation and profit; and if the State, in the regulation of its public domain, can grant to its own citizens the exclusive use of dry lands, we see no reason why it may not do the same thing in respect to such as are covered by water. And as all concede that a State may grant to one of its citizens the exclusive use of part of the common property, the conclusion would seem to follow, that it might by appropriate legislation confine the use of the whole to its own people alone.”

13 153 U. S. 684; 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 913; 38 L. ed. 867.

by the court as scarcely worth an argument.

"Whatever may

be the scope of Section 2 of Article IV," said the court, "the Constitution of the United States does not make the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of one State under the Constitution and laws of that State, the measure of the privilege and immunities to be enjoyed, as of right, by the citizens of another State under its Constitution and laws. of authorities upon the point is unnecessary."

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It also scarcely needs argument that under this equal privileges clause a citizen of one State residing, or having legal interests in another State, may not lay claim to privileges and immunities which his own State grants him, but which the other State does not grant to its own citizens.

In Paul v. Virginia1 the court say "The privileges and im munities secured to citizens of each State in the several States, by the provision in question, are those privileges and immunities which are common to the citizens in the latter States under their Constitution and laws by virtue of their being citizens. Special privileges enjoyed by citizens in their own States are not secured in other States by this provision. It was not intended by the provision to give to the laws of one State any operation in other States. They can have no such operation, except by the permission, express or implied, of those States."

$103. Corporations not Citizens within the Meaning of the Comity Clause.

In Paul v. Virginia the doctrine, never since questioned, was laid down that a corporation is not a citizen within the meaning of the term as used in the comity clause. Inasmuch as a corporation is the mere creation of local law, the court declare it can have no legal existence, or right to do business, beyond the limits of the sovereignty by which it is created. In other words, the interstate comity clause of the federal Constitution does not necessitate the recognition by the several States of corporations created by any of the other States. "Having no absolute right of recog

14 8 Wall. 168; 19 L. ed. 357.

nition in other States," the court say, "but depending for such recognition and enforcement of its contracts upon their assent, it follows, as a matter of course, that such assent may be granted upon such terms and conditions as those States may think proper to impose. They may exclude the foreign corporation entirely, they may restrict its business to particular localities, or they may exact such security for the performance of its contracts with their citizens as in their judgment will best promote the public interest. The whole matter rests in their discretion."

This principle of state omnipotence when dealing with the corporations of other States is, however, limited in three very important respects. In so far as such corporations are engaged in the conduct of interstate commerce they may not be controlled, the regulation of this subject being exclusively a federal concern; they may not be deprived of property without due process of law or denied the equal protection of the laws; and the obligation of contracts entered into with them may not be impaired."

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An instructive construction by the Supreme Court of the comity clause in its application to corporations is to be found in the case of Blake v. McClung,16 decided in 1898. In that case was held unconstitutional an act of the State of Tennessee which provided that resident creditors of mining and manufacturing corporations chartered in other States, and doing business in the State of Tennessee should have a priority in the distribution of assets, or subjection to the same, or any part thereof, to the payment of debts over all simple contract creditors, being residents of any other country or countries." After calling attention to the fact that the court had never attempted to give an exact or comprehensive definition of the clause "privileges and immunities" but had deemed it "safe, and more in accordance with the duty of a judicial tribunal, to leave its meaning to be determined in each case, upon a view of the particular rights asserted and denied therein," the court nevertheless goes on to quote with approval

15 These limitations will be more fully treated in later chapters. 16 172 U. S. 239; 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 165; 43 L. ed. 432.

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