In Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U.S. 489, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592, it was held that section 16 of chapter 96 of the laws of Tennessee of 1881, enacting that 'all drummers and all persons not having a regular licensed house of business in the taxing district of 'Shelby county,' offering for sale or selling goods, wares, or merchandise therein by sample, shall be required to pay to the county trustee the sum of $10 per week, or $25 per monty, for such privilege,' so far as it applied to persons soliciting the sale of goods on behalf of individuals or firms doing business in another state, was a regulation of commerce among the states, and violated the provision of the constitution of the United States which grants to congress the power to make such regulations. The question involved was stated by Mr. Justice BRADLEY, who delivered the opinion of the court, to be 'whether it is competent for a state to levy a tax or impose any other restriction upon the citizens or inhabitants of other states for selling or seeking to sell their goods in said state before they are introduced therein;' and it was decided that it was not. At the same time it was conceded that commerce among the states might be legitimately incidentally affected by state laws, when they, among other things, provided for 'the imposition of taxes upon persons residing within the state, or belonging to its population, and upon avocations and employments pursued therein, not directly connected with foreign or interstate commerce, or with some other employment or business exercised under authority of the constitution and laws of the United States.' And it was further stated: 'To say that the tax, if invalid as against drummers from other states, operates as a discrimination against the drummers of Tennessee, against whom it is conceded to be valid, is no argument, because the state is not bound to tax its own drummers; and if it does so whilst having no power to tax those of other states, it acts of its own free will, and is itself the author of such discrimination. As before said, the state may tax its own internal commerce; but that does not give it any right to tax interstate commerce.'
In the case at bar the complainants were established and did business in the taxing district as general merchandise brokers, and were taxed as such under section 9 of chapter 96 of the Tennessee Laws of 1881, which embraced a different subject-matter from section 16 of that chapter. For the year 1887 they paid the $50 tax charged, gave bond to report their gross commissions at the end of the year, and thereupon received, and throughout the entire year held, a general unrestricted license to do business as such brokers. They were thereby authorized to do any and all kinds of commission business, and bucame liable to pay the privilege tax in question, which was fixed in part and in part graduated according to the amount of capital invested in the business, or, if no capital were invested, by the amount of commissions received. Although their principals happened during 1887, as to the one party, to be wholly nonresident, and as to the other, largely such, this fact might have been otherwise then and afterwards, as their business was not confined to transactions for nonresidents.
In the Case of Robbins the tax was held, in effect, not to be a tax on Robbins, but on his principals, while here the tax was clearly levied upon complainants in respect of the general commission business they conducted, and their property engaged therein, or their profits realized therefrom.
No doubt can be entertained of the right of a state legislature to tax trades, professions, and occupations, in the absence of inhibition in the state constitution in that regard, and where a resident citizen engages in general business subject to a particular tax the fact that the business done chances to consist, for the time being, wholly or partially in negotiating sales between resident and nonresident merchants of goods situated in another state does not necessarily involve the taxation of interstate commerce, forbidden by the constitution.