And meantime the Court had sustained legislation of the State of New York under which a mortgagee of real property was denied a deficiency judgment in a foreclosure suit where the State court found that the value of the property purchased by the mortgagee at the foreclosure sale was equal to the debt secured by the mortgage.[1731] "Mortgagees," the Court said, "are constitutionally entitled to no more than payment in full. * * * To hold that mortgagees are entitled under the contract clause to retain the advantages of a forced sale would be to dignify into a constitutionally protected property right their chance to get more than the amount of their contracts. * * * The contract clause does not protect such a strategical, procedural advantage."[1732]
Statistical Data Pertinent to the Clause
The obligation of contracts clause attained the high point of its importance in our Constitutional Law in the years immediately following the Civil War.[1733] Between 1865 and 1873 there were twenty cases in which State acts were held invalid under the clause, of which twelve involved public contracts. During the next fifteen years, which was the period of Waite's chief justiceship, twenty-nine cases reached the Court in which State legislation was set aside under the clause. Twenty-four of these involved public contracts. The decline of the importance of the clause as a title in Constitutional Law began under Chief Justice Fuller (1888 to 1910). During this period less than 25% of the cases involving the validity of State legislation involved this rubric. In twenty-eight of these cases, of which only two involved private contracts, the statute involved was set aside. During Chief Justice White's term (1910 to 1921) the proportion of contract cases shrank to 15%, and in that of Chief Justice Taft, to 9%.[1734]
In recent years the clause has appeared to undergo something of a revival, not however as a protection of public grants, but as a protection of private credits. During the Depression, which began in 1929 and deepened in 1932, State legislatures enacted numerous moratorium statutes, and beginning with Home Loan Association v. Blaisdell, which was decided in 1934, the Court was required to pass upon several of these. At the same time the clause was, in effect, treated by the Court in two important cases as interpretive of the due process clause, Amendment V, and thus applied indirectly as a restriction on the power of Congress.[1735] But this emergence of the clause into prominence was a flash in the pan. During the last decade hardly a case a term involving the clause has reached the Court, counting even those in which it is treated as a tail to the due process of law kite.[1736] The reason for this declension has been twofold: first, the subordination of public grants to the police power; secondly, the expansion of the due process clause, which has largely rendered it a fifth wheel to the Constitutional Law coach.
Clause 2. No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
DUTIES ON EXPORTS AND IMPORTS
Scope
Only articles imported from or exported to a foreign country, or "a place over which the Constitution has not extended its commands with respect to imports and their taxation," e.g., the Philippine Islands, are comprehended by the terms "imports" and "exports,"[1737] goods brought from another State are not affected by this section.[1738] To determine how long imported wares remain under the protection of this clause, the Supreme Court enunciated the original package doctrine in the leading case of Brown v. Maryland.[1739] "When the importer has so acted upon the thing imported," wrote Chief Justice Marshall, "that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the country, it has, perhaps, lost its distinctive character as an import, and has become subject to the taxing power of the State; but while remaining the property of the importer, in his warehouse, in the original form or package in which it was imported, a tax upon it is too plainly a duty on imports, to escape the prohibition in the Constitution."[1740] A box, case or bale in which separate parcels of goods have been placed by the foreign seller is regarded as the original package, and upon the opening of such container for the purpose of using the separate parcels, or of exposing them for sale, each parcel loses its character as an import and becomes subject to taxation as a part of the general mass of property in the State.[1741] Imports for manufacture cease to be such when the intended processing takes place,[1742] or when the original packages are broken.[1743] Where a manufacturer imports merchandise and stores it in his warehouse in the original packages, that merchandise does not lose its quality as an import, at least so long as it is not required to meet such immediate needs.[1744] The purchaser of imported goods is deemed to be the importer if he was the efficient cause of the importation, whether the title to the goods vested in him at the time of shipment, or after its arrival in this country.[1745] A State franchise tax measured by properly apportioned gross receipts may be imposed upon a railroad company in respect of the company's receipts for services in handling imports and exports at its marine terminal.[1746]
Privilege Taxes