Interstate Tax Barriers to Marketing

Abstract

THE subject of interstate tax barriers to marketing is a very important one, for if there had been no interstate tax barriers, there might never have been a United States of America. As we know during and after the Revolutionary War, the colonies operated under the vague and loose arrangement called the Articles of Confederation. Every state could and, in fact, did tax any shipment that passed through it or through its contiguous waters. It became prohibitively expensive to ship anything that had to pass plural states; river commerce was effectively throttled. To discuss reforms of the vexatious restrictions placed upon interstate commerce by the states, desperate merchants called what is known as the Annapolis Convention in I796. Actually this convention did nothing in itself, but it adjourned with a recommendation that a larger convention be held in Philadelphia the following May. As everyone knows, the Constitution of the United States was the result of this Philadelphia convention. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution declares that Congress shall have power to regulate commerce... among the several States. ... But the Constitution says nothing about what is meant by a regulation of interstate