46 Colo. 382 | Colo. | 1909
delivered the opinion of the court:
The question presented is the validity of the Itinerant Vendors’ Act, Session Laws 1905, p. 274, upon the facts under which plaintiff in error was convicted and fined for violating its provisions. The act in question, so far as involved, provides that an itinerant vendor is one “who engages in either a temporary or transient business in this state, either in one locality or in traveling about the country, or from- place to place, selling manufactured goods, wares or merchandise. ’ ’
The facts upon which plaintiff in error was found guilty are substantially as follows: He represented in Bio Grande county The Spaulding Manufacturing Company, of Grinnell, Iówa, a concern engaged at that point in the manufacture and sale of buggies and other vehicles. He had a number of sub-agents working under him, who traveled about the country carrying with them printed catalogues and samples of the buggies and wagons, manufactured by the Spaulding company. They exhibited the catalogues- and samples and solicited orders for
Conceding that the act covers the transactions in which plaintiff in error was engaged, the precise proposition to consider and determine is, is it, under the facts, a regulation of commerce among the states 1 If it is, then it contravenes the provision of the federal constitution, which provides that congress shall have power “To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.”—Sec. 8, art. I. Under this provision the power to regulate commerce among the states is vested in congress alone, and interstate commerce cannot be taxed by a state.—Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129; Robbins v. Shelby Co. Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489; Brennan v. Titusville, 153 U. S. 289; Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U. S. 622; Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640; Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Sims, 191 U. S. 441; Stockard v. Morgan, 185 U. S. 27; see, also, Smith v. Farr, ante, 364.
The negotiation of sales of goods which are in another state for the purpose of introducing them into the state where the negotiation is made, is interstate commerce.—Ex parte Loeb, 72 Fed. 657; In re Spain, 47 Fed. 208; Robbins v. Shelby Co. Taxing Dist., supra; Brennan v. Titusville, supra; Asher v. Texas, supra.
This determination of what constitutes interstate commerce embraces such sales by sample or catalogue. (See the last three authorities above cited.)
The judgment of the county court is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to enter an order discharging the plaintiff in error.
Decision en banc. Reversed aAid remanded.