Definition
Goods, commodities, or other property brought into a country from a foreign country or territory. In constitutional and customs law, the term carries a precise meaning: articles are legally "imports" from the moment they enter domestic territory until they lose that character through entry into the stream of commerce — specifically, upon the breaking up of the original packages or the first wholesale disposition of the goods.
The term applies to movable property and commodities. It does not properly apply to persons, even those arriving from abroad.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of import; things brought into a country from abroad.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Commodities conveyed from a foreign country into one's own; articles brought in from abroad.
The ordinary meaning and the legal meaning are largely aligned, but constitutional law attaches a specific legal status to the word that ordinary usage does not capture. In common speech, an import is simply something brought in from another country. In law — particularly under the Import-Export Clause of the U.S. Constitution — goods retain their character as "imports" only during a defined window, and state taxing power turns on precisely when that window closes.
Core Elements
The constitutional significance of imports rests on three questions that courts have addressed:
1. When does imported status begin? Upon entry into domestic territory from a foreign country.
2. When does imported status end? When the original packages are broken up, or when the first wholesale disposition of the goods occurs — whichever comes first. After that point, the goods merge into the general mass of domestic property.
3. What legal consequences attach? While goods retain import status, states are constitutionally barred from laying imposts or duties on them under Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research significance of this term is constitutional, not merely commercial. The Import-Export Clause (U.S. Const. art. I, § 10) prohibits states from taxing imports or exports without congressional consent. Understanding when goods legally qualify as "imports" — and when they cease to be — determines the outer limits of state taxing authority. Historical cases turn on the original package doctrine, a line of analysis drawn from early Supreme Court commerce clause jurisprudence. Researchers working in 19th-century state taxation disputes, tariff law, or dormant commerce clause materials will encounter this doctrine repeatedly.
Researchers should note that historical sources use "imports" and "importations" interchangeably. The distinction between the two words carries no substantive legal weight.
For corpus researchers, the constitutional references embedded in Bouvier and Burrill (Article I, Sections 8 and 10) are navigational anchors: disputes about imports in the historical record are almost always disputes about the boundary between federal power over foreign commerce and state power over internal commerce. The losing argument almost always claims either that the goods have already lost import status or, conversely, that they have not yet lost it — depending on which party benefits.
The term does not meaningfully vary across the Law Mind corpus in its basic definition. What varies is the doctrinal application: which dispositions count as the "first wholesale" sale, whether repackaged goods re-acquire import status, and whether goods imported for the importer's own use rather than for resale follow the same rules. These are live questions in the historical materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: goods or property brought into a country from a foreign country. The entries are brief and largely identical across Black's (both editions). Burrill adds the important qualification — drawn from Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheaton 419 — that the term is not properly applicable to persons. This is a useful flag for researchers: the word "imports" in historical constitutional argument always refers to goods, not migrants or other arrivals. Bouvier is the most substantively useful of the four, incorporating the original package doctrine (the breaking-up-of-packages rule) and signaling the line of Supreme Court cases through Howard's and Wallace's reports that developed it.
No source dictionary adequately explains the practical consequence of the original package doctrine for state tax disputes, which is where the term did the heaviest legal work in the 19th century. Researchers should treat the dictionary entries as pointing toward the doctrine rather than explaining it.
Jurisdictional Note
The constitutional framework is federal and uniform: Article I, Section 10 applies to all states equally. State-law variations in customs, duties, or commercial classification of imported goods exist but are secondary to the federal constitutional floor. Research into specific state import taxation disputes must account for whether federal preemption was raised and how the original package question was resolved on the facts.