Story Case

Mr. James Burnham conducted a ferry, crossing the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, from Cairo to a small town in Kentucky, on the opposite side of the river. The state of Kentucky passed an act compelling all ferry boat owners to pay a license fee. Burnham objected to this tax, on the ground that he was engaged in interstate commerce, and not subject to the control of the state. Is this a good defense?

Ruling Court Case. Covington Bridge Company Vs. Kentucky, Volume 154 United States Reports, Page 204

The Covington Bridge Company maintained a bridge, crossing from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Covington, Kentucky. The state of Kentucky, by an act of legislature, attempted to fix the toll rates which the bridge company should charge for people crossing from Kentucky into Ohio. The bridge company objected, on the ground that the bridge was a vehicle of interstate commerce, and Congress alone had the power to legislate in regard thereto. The state maintained that many of those using the bridge had no commercial purpose whatsoever, and that the bridge was a stationary institution.

The opinion of the court: "A bridge is as much a vehicle of commerce as is a ferry boat, and the fact that one is immovable and the other a fixture does not alter the application of the rule. The thousands of people who daily pass and repass over this bridge may be as truly said to be engaged in commerce as if they were shipping cargoes of merchandise from New York to Liverpool. As the bridge is between two states, to fix the toll rate thereon is beyond the power of either Of them."

Ruling Law. Story Case Answer

The word "Commerce" means more than the mere barter and sale of commodities. It is intercourse in all its branches, including navigation and carriage, as well as the sale and exchange of goods. It includes the instrumentalities by which commerce is conducted. The commercial element may sometimes be lacking in these instrumentalities of intercourse between states, yet if this intercourse is present, with the possibilities of being a vehicle of commerce, it is an article of interstate commerce, and subject to the regulation of Congress. Burnham, in the Story Case, was engaged in interstate commerce, and the state tax was illegal.