In the case of Jett Bros. Distilling Company v. City of Carrollton in 1919, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a city ordinance which required distilleries to pay an annual license fee was not unconstitutional. The Jett Brothers Distilling Company argued that this ordinance violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights by depriving them of property without due process and denying equal protection under law because other businesses were not subject to such fees. However, the court held that it is within a municipality's power to impose reasonable regulations and restrictions on businesses for public welfare purposes including controlling liquor traffic within its jurisdiction. Therefore, requiring distilleries to pay an annual license fee did not violate constitutional rights as claimed by the plaintiff.

In the dissenting opinion for Jett Bros. Distilling Company v. City of Carrollton, it was argued that the city's ordinance imposing a license tax on whiskey warehouses was not in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as claimed by the plaintiff. The justice believed that this case did not involve an interference with interstate commerce and thus should be treated differently from other cases where such interference occurred. He contended that there is no constitutional prohibition against taxing property used in interstate commerce if done without discrimination or direct burden upon it, which he saw as being applicable to this situation. Furthermore, he disagreed with majority’s interpretation of previous rulings and insisted they were misapplied to this case because those involved discriminatory taxes aimed at driving out competition rather than mere licensing fees like here.