Brown v. Maryland
The Court struck down a Maryland law that required importers to buy a costly license before selling foreign goods still packed in the crates or bales in which they arrived, ruling the law amounted to an unconstitutional tax on imports.
The decision created what came to be called the 'original package doctrine': imported goods stay protected from state taxation only so long as they remain unsold and in their original packaging in the importer's hands, but lose that protection once broken up or sold into the general market.
“There is no difference, in effect, between a power to prohibit the sale of an article, and a power to prohibit its introduction into the country.”
Explaining why taxing imported goods after landing is as unconstitutional as taxing them at the port.
How it got here: Baltimore's City Court fined the importers under Maryland's license law; the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed; the importers brought a writ of error to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Alexander Brown and his sons, merchants in Baltimore, imported a package of foreign dry goods and sold it without obtaining a state license. Maryland law required wholesale importers of foreign goods to pay fifty dollars for a license before selling, with penalties for noncompliance. The merchants were indicted and fined under this law for selling without a license.
The question before the Court
Could Maryland force merchants to buy a state license before they could sell imported goods that were still in their original shipping packages?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Maryland could not require importers to buy a license before selling foreign goods that were still in their original, unbroken packages, because doing so was really a tax on the imports themselves, something the Constitution forbids states from imposing. The Court reasoned that a duty on the goods after they land is functionally the same as a duty on their entry, since either one can be used to choke off importation entirely.
The Court added a second, independent reason: because Congress's power to regulate foreign commerce includes the power to let importers sell what they bring in, a state license fee on that first sale also intruded on federal authority over commerce. The protection lasts only while the goods remain unsold in their original package form — once mixed into the general stream of commerce, states can tax them like any other property.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling protected merchants who bought foreign goods from being taxed twice — once by federal customs duties and again by state licensing fees — while goods were still bundled as imports. It also drew a durable line for when a state's taxing power over local commerce begins, shaping how states could regulate goods moving through interstate and foreign trade for generations.
What changes now
The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals of Maryland's judgment and sent the case back with instructions to enter judgment for the importers, ending their liability for the license penalty. The ruling permanently barred Maryland, and by extension other states, from charging license fees or similar taxes on the first sale of imported goods still in their original packaging. The Court expressly left open how the rule applies to goods brought from other states or to taxes that discriminate between foreign and domestic articles.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly declined to decide whether its reasoning would apply to a tax that discriminates between foreign and domestic goods, and noted only in passing (without fully deciding) that the same principles likely apply to goods imported from other states rather than foreign countries. The protection also stops once goods are sold or broken out of their original packaging.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Thompson
“The prohibition to the States is against laying any impost of duty on imports. It is the merchandise that is exempted from the imposition.”Arguing the constitutional ban protects only the goods themselves, not the importer's business generally.
Justice Thompson argued the Maryland license law was really a charge on the sale, not on the imported goods or the act of importing, and that the Constitution's import-tax ban protects only the merchandise from a foreign duty, not the importer from ordinary state business regulation. He saw no constitutional basis for treating wholesale sales differently from retail sales, and thought the majority's rule would improperly strip states of long-held taxing authority they possessed before the Constitution was adopted.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the constitutional ban on states taxing 'imports or exports' literally, concluding that 'imports' means the physical goods themselves, not merely the act of bringing them across a border — so a tax on goods after they land is just as much a duty on imports as a tax collected at the port.
- The Court reasoned that allowing a state to tax goods the moment they are unloaded would let the state achieve, through a different mechanism, exactly what the Constitution forbids: choking off importation by making resale prohibitively expensive, since no one imports goods that cannot be sold.
- To keep this rule from swallowing up all state taxing power, the Court drew a boundary later called the 'original package doctrine': imported goods remain protected imports, and thus off-limits to state taxation, only while they stay in the importer's hands in their original form or package; once sold or broken up and mixed into the general property of the state, they become ordinary taxable property.
- Turning to the separate constitutional grant of power to Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations, the Court reasoned that the power to authorize importation would be meaningless without an accompanying power to authorize the sale of what was imported, since sale is the very purpose of importing goods.
- Because the right to sell imported goods was an inseparable part of the federal power to regulate commerce, the Court concluded that a state license fee charged specifically on that first sale — while the goods remained in original packages — interfered with Congress's commerce power as well as the import-tax prohibition.
- Applying both conclusions to the Maryland law, the Court found the fifty-dollar license requirement charged importers directly for selling goods still in their imported form, making it indistinguishable from a forbidden tax on imports and an intrusion on the federal commerce power.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Gibbons v. Ogden (9 Wheat. 1)
Relies on its holding that Congress's commerce power is complete in itself and reaches into a state's interior.
Reaffirms M'Culloch v. The State of Maryland (4 Wheat. 316)
Applies its principle that state taxing power cannot be used to obstruct valid exercises of federal power.