[Footnote 7: United States v. Railroad Co., 17 Wall., 322.]
The Supreme Court has said (and many times reiterated in substance) that the National Government "cannot exercise its power of taxation so as to destroy the state governments, or embarrass their lawful action."[1] One of the most distinguished writers on American Constitutional law (Thomas M. Cooley, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan and afterward Chairman of the federal Interstate Commerce Commission) has said:
There is nothing in the Constitution which can be made to admit of any interference by Congress with the secure existence of any state authority within its lawful bounds. And any such interference by the indirect means of taxation is quite as much beyond the power of the national legislature as if the interference were direct and extreme.[2]
[Footnote 1: Railroad Co. v. Peniston, 18 Wall., 5, 30.]
[Footnote 2: Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, 7th Ed., 684.]
The question as to the right of Congress to levy an income tax on municipal securities came up squarely in the famous Income Tax Cases[1] involving the constitutionality of the Income Tax Law of 1804. While the Supreme Court was sharply divided as to the constitutionality of other features of the law, it was unanimous as to the lack of authority in the United States to tax the interest on municipal bonds.
[Footnote 1: Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S., 429; same case on rehearing, 158 U.S., 601.]
The decision in those cases is the law to-day (except in so far as it has been changed by the recent Sixteenth Amendment) with one possible limitation. It has been held that state agencies and instrumentalities, in order to be exempt from national taxation, must be of a strictly governmental character; the exemption does not extend to agencies and instrumentalities used by the state in carrying on an ordinary private business. This was decided in the South Carolina Dispensary case.[1] The State of South Carolina had taken over the business of selling liquor and the case involved a federal tax upon such business. The Court, while reaffirming the general doctrine, nevertheless upheld the tax on the ground that the business was not of a strictly governmental character. This decision suggests the possibility that if an attempt were made to tax state and municipal bonds the Court might draw a distinction based on the purpose for which the bonds were issued, and hold that only such as were issued for strictly governmental purposes were exempt.
[Footnote 1: South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S., 437, decided in 1905.]
It remains to consider the effect of the Sixteenth Amendment.