however, that the power of the states to grant the particular right or
privilege in question was subordinate to powers expressly conferred on
Congress by the Constitution; that Congress was given power under the
Constitution to provide a currency for the whole country, and the act in
question was legislation appropriate to that end. The case does not
hold that Congress has any general power to tax franchises or privileges
granted by a state.

[Footnote 1: 8 Wall., 533.]

[Footnote 2: See 8 Wall., p. 535.]

The scope of this chapter does not admit of further reference to the
decisions. It is strongly urged, however, that none of them, rightly
construed, will be found to sustain the right of the General Government
to impose a tax upon the exercise of franchises granted by a state in
the exercise of its independent sovereignty, and that such a decision
would mark a new departure in our jurisprudence.

In the debates in Congress over the bill many good lawyers appear to
have assumed, somewhat too hastily, that the tax in question was an
excise tax on business or occupation like that involved in the Spreckels
case, and that the only constitutional question, therefore, was one of
classification under the provision of the Constitution that excises
shall be uniform throughout the United States. No less eminent a
constitutional lawyer than Senator Bailey of Texas, in a colloquy with
the junior Senator from New York, put the matter thus:[1]

Mr. Root: May I ask the Senator from Texas if I am right in
inferring from the statement which he has just made that he