—no state has the right to lay a tax on interstate commerce in any form, whether by way of duties laid on the transportation of the subjects of that commerce, or on the receipts derived from that transportation, or on the occupation or business of carrying it on, and the reason is that such taxation is a burden on that commerce, and amounts to a regulation of it, which belongs …

The early view of the Supreme Court was that "no state ha [d] the right to lay a tax on interstate commerce in any form."

Thus, the States cannot tax interstate commerce, either by laying the tax upon the business which constitutes such commerce or the privilege of engaging in it, or upon the receipts, as such, derived from it

—the court held a general license tax, imposed by the State of Alabama upon the business of a telegraph company in part interstate and in part internal, to be unconstitutional, and held that since the tax affected the whole business without discrimination it could not be sustained with respect to that portion of the business that was internal and therefore taxable by the State.

We have repeatedly decided that a state law is unconstitutional and void which requires a party to take out a license for carrying on interstate commerce, no matter how specious the pretext may be for imposing it.

—related to a general license tax on telegraph companies, and was decided by the unanimous concurrence of the court.

On the allegations of the bill the latter commerce no less, perhaps even more, than commerce within a single State is an object of attack.

—case involved the validity of a city ordinance imposing, generally, a specified license tax,'on telegraph companies.'The ordinance was held invalid because the tax had reference to the entire business of the telegraph company, interstate and domestic, without any distinction being made between the different kinds of business.

—that it was too well settled to admit of debate, that'it is beyond the power of the state, under the guise either of a license tax or police regulation, to impose burdens upon interstate commerce, or to deny a foreign corporation the right to engage in such commerce in the state

[CITATION] Western U. Teleg. Co. v. Seay