Until the Freight Association case[1] it had generally been conceded that, as stated by Mr. Justice Jackson, In re Greene, 52 Fed. (1892), "when Congress * * * adopts or creates common law offences, the court may properly look to that body of jurisprudence for the true meaning and definition of such crimes, if they are not clearly defined in the act creating them. * * * The act does not undertake to define what constitutes a contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade, and recourse must, therefore, be had to the common law for the proper definition of these general terms, and to ascertain whether the acts charged come within the statute;" or, as Chief Justice Fuller more succinctly said in the Knight case:[2] "It was in the light of well settled principles that the Act of July 2, 1890, was framed." This conclusion is fortified by the many authorities cited in the opinion of the Court of Appeals in the Freight Association case.[3] In the last-named case, a combining and conspiring body of railroads, asserting that what they did was legal at common law, invoked this principle in the Court of Appeals, and, succeeding in convincing that court that their view of the common law was correct, won their case. On appeal, therefore, it was open to the Supreme Court to reverse, either because the common law did include the offense complained of, or because the statute exceeded the common law; and, as it was convinced that, in any event, the purpose of the Act had been invaded, it selected the simpler course
- ↑ 53 F. 440 (1892), 58 F. 58 (1893), 166 U. S. 290 (1897).
- ↑ 156 U. S. 16 (1895).
- ↑ 58 F. at p. 67 (1893).
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