Opinion of the Court. the company was an assent to the exercise by it of all the corporate powers, including that of consolidation, with which it was invested at the time of the vote. So true is this, that, if the Missouri company had never been consolidated with the Iowa company, and the road had only been built to the state line, and no extension of it through Iowa to Council Bluffs and Omaha had been made, it might well have been urged that the citizens of the township had been defrauded, and that the purpose in issuing the bonds had not been carried out. We think that, in the present case, the rule applied in the cases before cited, of County of Scotland v. Thomas, 94 U. S. 682; Town of East Lincoln v. Davenport, 94 U. S. 801; Wilson v. Salamanca, 99 U. S. 499; Menasha v. Hazard, 102 U. S. 81; Harter v. Kernochan, 103 U. S. 562; New Buffalo v. Iron Company, 105 U. S. 73; and Bates County v. Winters, 112 U. S. 325, is the more proper and salutary one, and that the doctrine laid down in Harshman v. Bates County, 92 U. S. 569, and in County of Bates v. Winters, 97 U. S. 83, that a County Court in Missouri could not, on a vote by a township to issue bonds to a corporation named, issue the bonds to a company formed by the consolidation of that corporation with another corporation, would not be, if applied here, a sound doctrine. (3) As to the objection that it does not appear by the findings of the Circuit Court that there was any formal order made by the County Court for the issue of the bonds. By § 51 of the statute before cited, it was provided, that if it should appear from the returns of the election that not less than two-thirds of the qualified voters voting at the election were in favor of the subscription to the stock of the railroad company, it should be the duty of the County Court to make the subscription in behalf of the township, according to the terms and conditions thereof, and that, if those conditions provided for the issuing of bonds in payment of such subscription, the County Court should issue such bonds in the name of the county and deliver them to the railroad company. This imposed a plain duty in the present case upon the County Court, because the statute and the vote, taken together, authorized Opinion of the Court. the subscription and the issue of the bonds, and no formal order by the County Court to do those acts was necessary. The acts were ministerial. The statute left no discretion in the County Court, but made it the duty of the court to make the subscription and issue the bonds. The sole duty of the court was to ascertain that the proper vote had been had. The bonds state on their face that they are "issued under and pursuant to an order of the County Court of Livingston County, authorized by a two-thirds vote of the people of Chillicothe municipal township," and each bond also states that the county has executed it by the presiding justice of the County Court of the county, under an order of the court, signing his name to the bond, and by the clerk of the court, under the order thereof, attesting the same and affixing thereto the seal of the court, and it is so signed and attested and the seal is affixed. Moreover, the finding of the Circuit Court is, that the records of the County Court show that that court made an order, on the 21st of February, 1877, stating that, under and by virtue of the statute of the State, approved March 23d, 1868, the county of Livingston, for the use and in behalf of the municipal township of Chillicothe, had issued and delivered the bonds in question to the St. Louis, Council Bluffs and Omaha Railroad Company. It is also found as a fact by the Circuit Court, that the county of Livingston had made eleven semiannual payments of interest on the bonds, from the proceeds of taxes levied in each year on the taxable property of the township. The County Court having been designated by the statute as the proper authority to determine that the conditions existed which authorized the making of the subscription, to be followed by the issuing of the bonds, the fact of the issue of the bonds by the County Court, under its seal, with the recitals contained in the bonds and the other facts above stated, estop the county from urging, as against a bona fide holder of the bonds and coupons, the existence of any mere irregularity in the making of the subscription or the issuing of the bonds. On the foregoing facts, it must be presumed that the subscription to the stock was made by the County Court in behalf of Opinion of the Court. the township, and the county is estopped from asserting the contrary. We are referred by the counsel for the plaintiff in error to the cases of The State v. Garroutte, 67 Missouri, 445, and Weil v. Greene County, 69 Missouri, 281, as holding to the contrary of the views we have here announced. Independently of the fact that these decisions were made in 1878, many years after the bonds in the present case were issued, no such facts existed in those cases as exist in the present case. In the case in 67 Missouri, the bonds were issued to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company, to aid in building the Kansas City and Memphis Railroad, alleged to be a branch of the former road. The main line had never been built. The court said that a branch road necessarily presupposed a main trunk line; and that the Kansas City and Memphis Railroad was, for all practical purposes, really a distinct and independent branch of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the union existing merely in name but not in substance, and the branch road having separate stock and stockholders, president, directors, and liabilities from the main road, so as to require, under the Constitution of Missouri of 1865, a vote of the people in favor of the issue of the bonds. There was no vote of the people in that case. In the case in 69 Missouri, the bonds had been issued by Greene County to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company, to aid in building the road through that county. The case did not show that there was any connection between the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company and the railroad to be built, nor what railroad it was, nor that Greene County had ever subscribed to the stock of any railroad company. The exceptions taken on the trial, as above set forth, do not present any question different from those which have been discussed. The bonds and coupons were properly read in evidence, and so were the certified copies of the tax levies. We find no error in the record, and The judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed. Opinion of the Court. ASHER. TEXAS. ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF TEXAS. No. 781. Argued October 11, 12, 1888. - Decided October 29, 1888. A State law exacting a license tax to enable a person within the State, to solicit orders and make sales there for a person residing within another State, is repugnant to that clause of the Constitution of the United States which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several States, and is void. Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, was carefully considered and is affirmed. Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, to the same point received the unanimous concurrence of the court, and is affirmed. A decision of this court, not in harmony with some of its previous decisions, has the effect to overrule those with which it is in conflict, whether mentioned and commented on or not. On the application of the plaintiff in error a writ of habeas corpus, issued from a state court of Texas, to inquire into the validity of his imprisonment under the provisions of a statute of the State alleged to be in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. In the Court of Appeals of Texas final judgment was given against the petitioner. This writ of error was sued out to bring that judgment under review. Mr. Abel Crook for plaintiff in error. Mr. John J. McElhone was with him on the brief. Mr. J. S. Hogg, Attorney General of Texas, for defendant in error. Mr. W. L. Davidson was with him on the brief. MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court. This is a writ of error to the Court of Appeals of the State of Texas in a case of habeas corpus. By an act of the legislature of Texas, passed May 4th, 1882, it was provided that there shall be levied on and collected "from every commercial traveller, drummer, salesman, or solicitor of trade, by sample or otherwise, an annual occupation tax of thirty-five dollars, VOL. CXXVm-9 Opinion of the Court. payable in advance; to be paid to the Comptroller of Public Accounts, whose receipts under seal shall be evidence of the payment of such tax;" and it was provided that every such commercial traveller, drummer, &c., "shall, on demand of the tax collector of any county of the State, or any peace officer of said county, exhibit to such officer the Comptroller's receipt;" and on refusal "shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor and fined in a sum not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars." And by article 110, chapter 5, title 4, of the Penal Code of the State of Texas, it is provided that, "any person who shall pursue or follow any occupation, calling, or profession, or do any act taxed by law, without first obtaining a license therefor, shall be fined in any sum not less than the amount of the taxes so due, and not more than double that sum." By a statement of facts agreed upon by the parties in the court below, it appears that William G. Asher, the plaintiff in error, "is a resident and citizen of the city of New Orleans, State of Louisiana, and on the 27th day of May, A.D. 1887, and for about the period of one month prior thereto, was engaged in the business of soliciting trade by the use of samples for the house for which he worked as drummer, in the city of Houston, Harris County, State of Texas, said house being Charles G. Schulze, of New Orleans, Louisiana, who was a manufacturer of rubber stamps and stencils, for the sale of which said Asher was then and there soliciting orders or trade. While engaged in the act of drumming for said Charles G. Schulze, and for the claimed offence of not having taken out the required license for so doing said business, the defendant, William G. Asher, was arrested by one George Ellis, sheriff of said county of Harris, State of Texas, and carried before the Hon. James A. Breeding, a justice of the peace of Precinct No. 1 of said county of Harris, State of Texas, and fined for the offence of pursuing the occupation of drummer without a license. It is admitted that Charles G. Schulze is engaged in manufacturing in New Orleans, State of Louisiana, and in selling rubber stamps and stencils, and that it was a line of such articles for the sale of which the said defendant, William |