ed by Marshall
himself in the apprehensions which he voiced that any concession to "the
great importing States" might be turned by them against the rest of the
country. Indeed, he is uncertain whether the original package doctrine
will prove sufficient for its purposes and accordingly offers it not as
a rule "universal in its application," but rather as a stop-gap
principle. History has proved, however, that in this he builded better
than he knew. For in the field of foreign commerce the original package
doctrine has never been disturbed, and it has scarcely been added to;
and so confined, it has never been surpassed by any later piece of
judicial legislation, whether in point of durability or in that of
definiteness and easy comprehensibility.[536]

State Taxation of the Subject Matter of Interstate Commerce

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The task of drawing the line between State power and the commercial
interest has proved a comparatively simple one in the field of foreign
commerce, the two things being in great part territorially distinct.
With "commerce among the States" it is very different. This is conducted
in the interior of the country, by persons and corporations that are
ordinarily engaged also in local business; its usual incidents are acts
which, if unconnected with commerce among the States, would fall within
the State's powers of police and taxation; while the things it deals in
and the instruments by which it is carried on comprise the most ordinary
subject matter of State power. In this field the Court has,
consequently, been unable to rely upon sweeping solutions. To the
contrary, its judgments have often been fluctuating and tentative, even
contradictory; and this is particularly the case as respects the
infringement of the State taxing power on interstate commerce. In the
words of Justice Frankfurter: "The power of the States to tax and the
limitations upon that power imposed by the Commerce Clause have
necessitated a long, continuous process of judicial adjustment. The need
for such adjustment is inherent in a Federal Government like ours, where
the same transaction has aspects that may concern the interests and
involve the authority of both the central government and the constituent
States. The history of this problem is spread over hundreds of volumes
of our Reports. To attempt to harmonize all that has been said in the
past would neither clarify what has gone before nor guide the future.
Suffic