From the foregoing sections it has appeared that the State's authority over articles brought in from the other States does not attach, except for purposes of taxation, until the articles so brought in have been sold. It will also have appeared, however, from the quotations which have been made, that this rule is modified by the doctrine that, whether sold or not, the articles brought in lose their interstate commercial character, and full state authority at once attaches, as soon as these articles have in any way become mixed with the general mass of the property of the State to which they have been transported. As a convenient test for determining when this commingling takes place, the Supreme Court early developed the so-called" Original Package "doctrine. This doctrine is that so long as the commodity is kept in theunbroken package in which it was delivered to the carrier for transportation, no commingling with the state has taken place. At times this has been stated by the courts and by commentators as an absolute rule. In fact, however, as will appear from the cases which will be reviewed, the doctrine does not state a right to which the exporter is entitled, but a test which the court frequently finds it convenient to apply for determining when commingling of the imports with state goods has taken place, but which in other cases may be held inapplicable because of the character of the goods transported.

25 120 U. S. 489; 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592; 30 L. ed. 694. 26 125 U. S. 465; 8 Sup. Ct Rep. 689; 31 L. ed. 700. 27 135 U. S. 100; 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681 ; 34 L. ed. 128.

The original package doctrine was first stated by Marshall in Brown v. Maryland28 with reference to the prohibition laid upon the States as to the taxation of exports and imports. "There must be,"says the Chief Justice," a point of time when the prohibition ceases, and the power of the State to tax commences; we cannot admit that this point of time is the instant that the articles enter the country ... it is sufficient for the present to say. generally, that when the importer has so acted upon the thing imported 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."29 And.

28 12 Wh. 419: 6 L. ed. 678.

29 As already observed, and will later be more fully discussed, articles of interstate commerce are. while in their original packages and in the hands of the importer, subject to taxation by the State in which they are.

it is in this case, it will be remembered, that the doctrine is laid down that sale is the object of, and an essential ingredient of commerce.

In Bowman v. Railway Co.30 the court had held that a State could not forbid a common carrier to bring intoxicating liquor into the State from another State or Territory except upon the conditions mentioned in the act. In Leisy v. Hardin31 the court took the further step of declaring that the importers had the right to sell in the original packages, unopened and unbroken, articles brought into the State from another State or Territory, notwithstanding a statute of the State prohibiting the sale of such articles except for the purposes mentioned therein, and under a license from the State. This statute the court held unconstitutional, saying: "Under the decision in Bowman v. Railway Co. they had the right to import beer into that State, and, in the view which we have expressed, they had the right to sell it, by which act alone it would become mingled in the common mass of property within the State. Up to that point of time, we hold that, in the absence of congressional permission to do so, the State had no power to interfere, by seizure or any other action, in prohibition of importation and sale by the foreign or non-resident importer."32

In Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania33 the original package test was applied to interstate shipments of oleomargarine.