Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/294

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2/6 ^^^ VARD LA W RB VIE IV.

rule has been repeatedly and emphatically laid down by the Su- preme Court. ^ In the recent Iowa liquor-law case, Bowman v. Chicago & N. W. Railway Co.,^ a law of Iowa forbade any com- mon carrier to transport knowingly intoxicating liquors to any point within the State, unless first furnished with a certificate from the auditor of the county to which said liquors were to be transported, that the consignee was authorized to sell intoxicating liquors in that county. Foreign liquors, imported under the laws of the United States, were excepted from the operation of the law while in the original packages. The defendant was sued in the United States Circuit Court for refusing to transport liquors in the absence of such a certificate. The State law was held void as con- flicting with the regulation by Congress of commerce among the several States. The majority of the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Matthews, considered the law to be a regulation of inter- state commerce, operating directly upon commerce itself. The subject of the transportation of goods was one capable of a national plan or system of regulation, and one which Congress, by its in- action, had in effect declared should be free from restraint. It was conceded that a State, for the purpose of protecting its people against the evils of intemperance, has the right to prohibit within its limits the manufacture of intoxicating liquors as well as all domes- tic commerce in them. "It may adopt any measures tending, even indirectly and remotely, to make the policy effective, until it passes the line of power delegated to Congress under the Consti- tution. It cannot, without the consent of Congress express or implied, regulate commerce between its people and those of the other States of the Union in order to effect its end, however de- sirable such a regulation might be."^

Chief Justice Waite and Justices Harlan and Gray dissented. The dissenting opinion by Justice Harlan takes the position that "the police power, as far as it involves the public health, the pub- lic morals, or the public safety, remains with the States, and is

��1 Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 275 (1875); R- ^- ^- ^- Hxwcn, 95 U. S. 465, 47X, 472 (1877); New Orleans Gas Co. v. La. Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, 661 (1885); Morgan v, Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455, 464 (1886) ; Western Union Tel. Co. v, Pendleton, 122 U. S. 347, 359 (1886) ; Bowman v, Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689 (March 19, 1888), 125 U. S. 465.

« 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689; s. c. 125 U. S. 465.

• 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 702. 703; 125 U. S. 493.