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
th