The Wilson Act and the Constitution
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purposes in the Passenger Cases,* for, tions of commerce which were commercial although in these later cases the par in their nature and based on commercial ticular statute was held unconstitutional, and business reasons were national and it was held so not because of a denial to . required to be uniform. How otherwise the state of the right to protect itself, indeed can we justify the numerous but because it seemed to the Court that decisions which have from time to time the regulations imposed were imposed upheld the validity of state regulations for the purpose of raising money rather in regard to the color blindness of railroad engineers, which have enforced than for self-protection. The next case of importance was that Sunday laws even when applied to of Cooley v. Board of Wardens,^ and trains engaged in interstate traffic, and in it was fairly and squarely announced which have generally regulated that the doctrine for which we contend. That traffic for the protection of the lives of doctrine is that, "whether the power of their citizens? All of these have seri Congress is exclusive or concurrent with ously affected the course and speed and ease of interstate transportation, and a like power in the state, is to be deter mined not from the nature of the power the attempt which is sometimes made itself but from the nature of the subjects to reconcile them with the theory of over which the power is to be exercised. Leisy v. Hardin by attempting to draw Whatever subjects of this power are in a distinction between commerce and their nature national or admit only of the agency of commerce is too refined to be worthy of sound consideration, and one uniform system or plan of regula tion may justly be said to be of such will never meet with any degree of pop ular approval in this practical and a nature as to require exclusive legis lation by Congress." And it is only in common-sense age. the distortion of this case and its real Of the truth of these statements and holding and not in the statement of the that the cases of Leisy v. Hardin and rule that the Court erred in the cases Bowman v. Railway Company had of Bowman v. Railway Company and gone too far in their assertion of national Leisy v. #aritrc which followed. In them sovereignty, Congress and the Supreme the Court, if it desired to be consistent Court itself were apparently soon con with its prior decisions, should have vinced. The decisions in question in said, not that interstate commerce was deed were a death blow to the move necessarily national in its character and ments for prohibition in the United required to be governed under a uniform States and seriously threatened to dis system of regulations and by the federal rupt the Republican party in whose Congress alone and that silence on the part ranks the prohibitionists were chiefly of Congress implied a prohibition on action to be found. A remedy was necessary, on the part of the states, but that regula- but instead of the natural remedy of necessary to effect the purposes are within the confession of error and repentance which scope of that authority. There is no conflict of every one would have appreciated, a power, or of legislation, as between the states and the United States; each is acting within its sphere, nostrum of legal refinement was fur and for the public good; and, a a loss of revenue nished which left the people even more should accrue to the United States from a dimin ished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be in the dark as to the fundamental the gainer a thousandfold in the health, wealth, and happiness of the people." See License Cases, theories of governments than before, and 6 Wall. 462. started another web of entangling legal » 7 How. 283. and political refinement. t 12 How. 209.
