s the right to require the services of its citizens at the seat
of government and they the correlative right to visit the seat of
government, rights which, if the Nevada tax was valid, were at the mercy
of any State, the power to tax being without limit. Reference was also
made to the right of the government to transport troops at all times by
the most expeditious method. Two of the Justices, however, rejected this
line of reasoning and held the act to be void under the commerce
clause.[618] But it was not until 1885 that the Court, in deciding
Gloucester Ferry Company _v._ Pennsylvania,[619] stated flatly that
"Commerce among the States * * * includes the transportation of
persons,"[620] and hence was not taxable by the States, a proposition
which is still good law.[621] Four years earlier it had been held that
the transmission of telegraph messages from one State to another, being
interstate commerce, was something that the State of origin could not
tax.[622]

State Taxation of the Interstate Commerce Privilege: Foreign
Corporations

DOCTRINAL HISTORY

In the famous case of Paul _v._ Virginia,[623] decided in 1869, it was
held that a corporation chartered by one State could enter other States
only with their assent, which might "be granted upon such terms and
conditions as those States may think proper to impose";[624] but along
with this holding went the statement that "the power conferred upon
Congress to regulate commerce includes as well commerce carried on by
corporations as commerce carried on by individuals."[625] And in the
State Freight Tax Case it is implied that no State can regulate or
restrict the right of a "foreign" corporation--one chartered by another
State--to carry on interstate commerce within its borders,[626] an
implication which soon became explicit. In Leloup _v._ Port of
Mobile,[627] decided in 1888, the Court had before it a license tax on a
telegraph company which was engaged in both domestic and interstate
business. The general nature of the exaction did not suffice to save it.
Said the Court: "The question is squarely presented to us, * * *,
whether a State, as a condition of doing business within its
jurisdiction, may exact a license tax from a telegraph company, a large
part of whose business is the transmission of messages from one State to
another and between the United States and foreign countries, and which
is invested with the powers and privileges conferred by the act of
Co