"Take the case of the Home Insurance Company v. Morse, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a statute of Wisconsin requiring an insurance company of another State to agree that it would not remove a case against it to the United States Circuit Court was 'illegal and void' and therefore not binding on the company. Then read, and rub your eyes as you read, the same Court in Doyle v. The Continental Insurance Company, in which it was held that the State may prescribe any condition that it may deem proper, whether constitutional or not, upon which corporations of other States may enter its borders, using language which was long held as a sword over companies that contemplated taking a case to the United States Circuit Court in that State, or in other States having a like statute. Years afterwards we have from the same Court Barron v. Burnside, in which it was held that the ominous part of Doyle v. The Continental Insurance Company was obiter dictum; holding further that no conditions can be imposed by a State upon corporations foreign to it which are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United states. Such an episode reminds one of the trick on Falstaff that was 'argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a jest for ever.'"
Dictum

January 1, 1970

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