In the 1898 case of Henderson Bridge Company v. Henderson City, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bridge company, stating that a city cannot tax property outside its jurisdiction. The dispute arose when Henderson City attempted to levy taxes on the entire length of a bridge owned by the Henderson Bridge Company, even though part of it was located outside city limits. The court held that while cities have broad powers to tax properties within their boundaries for public purposes, they do not possess extraterritorial taxing authority and therefore could only impose taxes on portions of properties within their jurisdictional reach.

In the dissenting opinion for Henderson Bridge Company v. Henderson City, it was argued that the majority's decision to uphold a tax imposed by the city of Henderson on the bridge company was unjust and inconsistent with previous rulings. The dissenting justices contended that this ruling contradicted past decisions where similar taxes were deemed unconstitutional as they interfered with interstate commerce. They believed that since the bridge served as an essential channel for such commerce, any taxation upon it would inevitably affect trade between states and thus fall under federal jurisdiction rather than state or local authority. Furthermore, they asserted that even if one could argue this case differed from prior ones due to technicalities in how tolls were collected or profits made, these differences should not be enough to justify what they saw as a clear violation of constitutional principles regarding interstate commerce regulation.