touches the right of each state under the compact evidenced by the
Federal Constitution to manage its internal affairs free from compulsion
or interference by the other states. To illustrate: In some parts of the
country the anti-corporation feeling runs high. Many men if given their
way would tax the larger corporations out of existence. Under this
decision the way is open whenever a majority can be secured in Congress.
An increase in the tax rate is all that would be necessary. Make the
rate ten per cent. or twenty per cent. instead of one per cent. and the
thing is accomplished.

New York may deem it good policy to encourage the carrying on of
industry in a corporate form. Texas may take a different view and
conclude that the solution of the trust problem lies in suppressing
certain classes of corporations altogether. Under this decision it lies
within the power of Texas and her associates if sufficiently numerous to
impose their view on New York and make it impossible for her domestic
industries to be carried on profitably in a corporate form. And yet the
possibility of impressing the will of one state or group of states upon
another state with respect to her internal affairs is the very thing
which the founders of the republic sought most carefully to avoid. Had
it been understood in 1787 that the grant of taxing powers to the
General Government involved such a curtailment of state independence,
few states, in all probability, would have been ready to ratify the
Constitution.




XII