of the state to tax
copyrights:[2]

To concede a right to tax them would be to concede a power to
impede or burden the operation of the laws enacted by Congress
to carry into execution a power vested in the National
Government by the Constitution.

[Footnote 1: _People ex rel. Edison, &c., Co., v. Assessors_, 156 N.Y.,
417; _People ex rel. v. Roberts_, 159 N.Y., 70; _In Re Sheffield_, 64
Fed. Rep., 833; _Commonwealth v. Westinghouse, &c., Co._, 151 Pa., 265.]

[Footnote 2: 159 N.Y., p. 75.]

Apparently the same rule would be applicable were the granting of patent
rights, like the granting of ordinary corporate franchises, a
prerogative reserved under our system of government to the states
instead of being expressly conferred on the United States. By parity of
reasoning, the Federal Government in that case would have no power to
tax them.

It is familiar law, reiterated over and over again by the Supreme Court,
that Congress cannot tax the means or instrumentalities employed by the
states in exercising their powers and functions, any more than a state
can tax the instrumentalities similarly employed by the General
Government. Thus, it has been held that Congress cannot tax a municipal
corporation (being a portion of the sovereign power of the state) upon
its municipal revenues[1]; that Congress cannot impose a tax upon the
salary of a judicial officer of a state[2]; that Congress cannot tax a
bond given in pursuance of a state law to secure a liquor license.[3]

[Footnote 1: _United States vs. Railroad Co._, 17 Wall., 322.]

[Footnote 2: _Collector v. Day_, 11 Wall., 113.]

[Footnote 3: _Ambrosini v. United States_, 185 U.S., 1.]

In the light of these decisions it is not apparent how Congress can tax
the franchises of those state corporations (and they are many and
important) which perform some public or quasi-public function. A state,
to carry out its purposes of internal improvement, charters an
intrastate railway or ferry company with power to charge tolls and
exercise the right of eminent domain. Is not the grant of corporate
existence and privileges to such a corporation one of the means or
instrumentalities employed by the state for carrying out its legitimate
functions, and is not a tax by the Federal Government upon the exercise
by such a corporation of its corporate powers an interference with such
means or instrumentalities?

In any discussion of the right of Congress to tax the