MCCRAY v. UNITED STATES 195 U.S. 27 (1904)

Together with champion v. ames (1903), the decision in McCray played a seminal role in the expansion of a national police power. Responding to lobby pressure, Congress in 1902 passed a clearly discriminatory excise tax on oleomargarine colored yellow to resemble butter. Relying on its power to regulate interstate commerce, Congress sought to force yellow oleo off the market by taxing it at a rate forty times greater than naturally colored oleo. The act was attacked as an encroachment on state police powers, a taking of property without due process, and a violation of the fundamental principles inherent in the Constitution.

justice edward d. white, for a 6–3 Court, refused to inquire into Congress's intent and sustained the tax. He argued that the Court could not examine the wisdom of a particular act and, reiterating an obiter dictum from Champion, said the remedy for "unwise or unjust" acts "… lies not in the abuse by the judicial authority of its functions, but in the people, upon whom … reliance must be placed for the correction of abuses." The Court pointedly dismissed william guthrie's argument that the validity of a tax ought to be determined by its natural and reasonable effect, regardless of pretext, though it would adopt his reasoning in bailey v. drexel (1922). The act's purpose—to suppress the sale of yellow oleo rather than to raise revenue—was immaterial. White concluded a judicial abdication of power in this case (although the Court would reassert it in Bailey) by stating that the Court could not help but sustain a congressional act even if that body "abused its lawful authority by levying a tax which was unwise or oppressive, or the result of the enforcement of which might be to indirectly affect subjects not within the powers delegated to Congress."

Chief Justice melville w. fuller and Justices henry b. brown and rufus peckham dissented without opinion.

David Gordon
(1986)