The legislation of the State of Georgia contained in §§ 4578 and
4310 of the Code of 1882, forbidding the running of freight trains
on any railroad in the state on Sunday and providing for the trial
and punishment, on conviction, of the superintendent of a railroad
company violating that provision, although it affects interstate
commerce in a limited degree, is not, for that reason, a needless
intrusion upon the domain of federal jurisdiction, nor strictly a
regulation of interstate commerce, but is an ordinary police
regulation, designed to secure the wellbeing, and to promote the
general welfare of the people within the state, and is not invalid
by force alone of the Constitution of the United States; but is to
be respected in the courts of the Union until superseded and
displaced by some act of Congress, passed in execution of the power
granted to it by the Constitution.
There is nothing in the legislation in question in this case
that suggests that it was enacted with the purpose to regulate
interstate commerce, or with any other purpose than to prescribe a
rule of civil duty for all who, on the Sabbath day, are within the
territorial jurisdiction of the state.
Page 163 U. S. 300
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error, Hennington, superintendent of
transportation and having charge of the freight business of the
Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company, was indicted, in the
Superior Court of Dade County, Georgia, for the offense of having,
on the 15th day of March, 1891 -- that being the Sabbath day --
unlawfully run a freight train on the Alabama Great Southern
Railroad in that county.
The statute under which the prosecution was instituted is as
follows:
Code of Georgia, 1882, Sec. 4578. If any freight train shall be
run on any railroad in this state on the Sabbath day (known as
Sunday), the superintendent of transportation of such railroad
company, or the officer having charge of the business of that
department of the railroad, shall be liable for indictment for a
misdemeanor in each county through which such train shall pass, and
on conviction shall be for each offense punished as prescribed in
section 4310 of this Code. On such trial, it shall not be necessary
to allege or prove the names of any of the employees engaged on
such train, but the simple fact of the train's being run. The
defendant may justify himself by proof that such employees acted in
direct violation of the orders and rules of the defendant,
provided always that whenever any train on any railroad in
this state, having in such train one or more cars loaded with
livestock, which train shall be delayed beyond schedule time, shall
not be required to lay over on the line of road or route during
Sunday, but may run on to the point where, by due course of
shipment or consignment, the next stock pen on the route may be,
where said animals may be fed and watered according to the
facilities usually afforded for such transportation. And it shall
be lawful for all freight trains on the different
Page 163 U. S. 301
railroads in this state, running over said roads on Saturday
night, to run through to destination,
provided the time of
arrival, according to the schedule by which the train or trains
started on the trip, shall not be later than eight o'clock on
Sunday morning.
Section 4310, referred to in the section just quoted, is as
follows:
"Accessories after the fact, except where it is otherwise
ordered in this Code, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one
thousand dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in
the chain-gang on the public works, or on such other works as the
county authorities may employ the chain-gang, not to exceed twelve
months, and any one or more of these punishments may be ordered in
the discretion of the judge,
provided that nothing herein
contained shall authorize the giving the control of convicts to
private persons, or their employment by the county authorities in
such mechanical pursuits as will bring the products of their labor
into competition with the products of free labor."
The defendant pleaded not guilty. He also pleaded specially
certain facts which, he averred, showed that the statute of
Georgia, as applied to this case, was in conflict with the
provision of the Constitution of the United States giving Congress
power to regulate commerce among the states.
At the trial, the defendant admitted that he was superintendent
of transportation of the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, the
property of the Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company, a
corporation of Alabama; that the line of that railroad began at the
City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, extended nine miles through that
state, when it entered the County of Dade, Georgia, and ran through
that county and over the line of road constructed and operated
originally by the Wills Valley Railroad Company into Alabama;
thence through Alabama 245 miles, and into Mississippi, to the City
of Meridian, where it connected with other roads; that said company
was acting as a common carrier of passengers and freight along its
line, using engines and cars propelled by steam; that, on the day
mentioned in the indictment,
Page 163 U. S. 302
the company, by its superintendent of transportation, the
defendant, ran over its line of road from Chattanooga, Tennessee,
through Georgia and Alabama to Meridian, Mississippi, a train of
cars laden with freight for points beyond the limits of Georgia,
the train having been loaded in Tennessee with freight destined for
points outside and beyond the limits of Georgia.
The defendant contended that the statute, if applied to these
facts, was repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. This
contention was overruled, and the jury were instructed that under
the facts admitted, the defendant was guilty. The jury accordingly
found him guilty as charged in the indictment.
The case was taken to the Supreme Court of Georgia, and it was
assigned for error that the trial court refused to adjudge section
4578 of the Code of Georgia, when applied to the admitted facts, to
be repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of Georgia held the statute under which the
prosecution was instituted to be a regulation of internal police,
and not a regulation of commerce; that it was not in conflict with
the Constitution of the United States, even as to freight trains
passing through the state from and to adjacent states and laden
exclusively with freight received on board before the trains
entered Georgia and consigned to points beyond its limits.
As the judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia denied to the
defendant a right of immunity specially set up and claimed by him
under the Constitution of the United States, no question is or can
be made as to the jurisdiction of this Court to review that
judgment.
If the statute in question, forbidding the running in Georgia of
railroad freight trains on the Sabbath day, had been expressly
limited to trains laden with domestic freight, it could not be
regarded otherwise than as an ordinary police regulation,
established by the state under its general power to protect the
health and morals, and to promote the welfare, of its people.
Page 163 U. S. 303
From the earliest period in the history of Georgia, it has been
the policy of that state, as it was the policy of many of the
original states, to prohibit all persons, under penalties, from
using the Sabbath as a day for labor and for pursuing their
ordinary callings. By an act of the colonial legislature of Georgia
approved March 4, 1762, it was provided:
"No tradesman, artificer, workman, laborer or other person
whatsoever shall do or exercise any worldly labor, business or work
of their ordinary callings, upon the Lord's day, or any part
thereof (works of necessity or charity only excepted), and that
every person being of the age of fifteen years or upwards,
offending in the premises, shall, for every such offense, forfeit
the sum of ten shillings. And that no person or persons whatsoever
shall publicly cry, show forth, or expose to sale, any wares,
merchandise, fruit, herbs, goods, or chattels whatsoever upon the
Lord's day, or any part thereof, upon pain that every person so
offending shall forfeit the same goods so cried or showed forth or
exposed to sale, or pay ten shillings."
2 Cobb's New Dig. Laws, Georgia, p. 853. This act is
substantially preserved in section 4579 of the Code of Georgia. And
by an Act approved February 11, 1850, it was provided
"that from and after the 1st day of March next, it shall not be
lawful for any company or individual to run any freight train or
any car carrying freight upon any railroad now existing, or that
may hereafter be made, in this state, on the Sabbath day, and any
conductor or other person so running or assisting in running any
train or car carrying freight on the Sabbath day shall each be
guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be fined
in a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars."
1 Cobb's New Dig. Laws, Georgia, p. 399. This act was amended by
substituting "superintendent of transportation" for "conductor,"
and in other particulars not important to be mentioned, and as
amended it constitutes section 4578 of the Criminal Code, under the
heading of "Offenses against Public Morality, Health, Police," etc.
Code of Georgia 1882.
In what light is the statute of Georgia to be regarded? The well
settled rule is that if a statute purporting to have
Page 163 U. S. 304
been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or
the public safety has no real or substantial relation to those
objects or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the
fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and
thereby give effect to the Constitution.
Mugler v. Kansas,
123 U. S. 623,
123 U. S. 661;
Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313,
136 U. S.
320.
In our opinion, there is nothing in the legislation in question
which suggests that it was enacted with the purpose to regulate
interstate commerce, or with any other purpose than to prescribe a
rule of civil duty for all who, on the Sabbath day, are within the
territorial jurisdiction of the state. It is nonetheless a civil
regulation because the day on which the running of freight trains
is prohibited is kept by many under a sense of religious duty. The
legislature having, as will not be disputed, power to enact laws to
promote the order and to secure the comfort, happiness, and health
of the people, it was within its discretion to fix the day when all
labor, within the limits of the state, works of necessity and
charity excepted, should cease. It is not for the judiciary to say
that the wrong day was fixed, much less that the legislature erred
when it assumed that the best interests of all required that one
day in seven should be kept for the purposes of rest from ordinary
labor. The fundamental law of the state committed these matters to
the determination of the legislature. If the lawmaking power errs
in such matters, its responsibility is to the electors, and not to
the judicial branch of the government. The whole theory of our
government, federal and state, is hostile to the idea that
questions of legislative authority may depend upon expediency, or
upon opinions of judges as to the wisdom or want of wisdom in the
enactment of laws under powers clearly conferred upon the
legislature. The Legislature of Georgia no doubt acted upon the
view that the keeping of one day in seven for rest and relaxation
was "of admirable service to a state considered merely as a civil
institution." 4 Bl.Com. *63. The same view was expressed by MR.
JUSTICE FIELD in
Ex Parte Newman, 9 Cal. 502, 520, 529,
when, referring to a statute of California relating to
Page 163 U. S. 305
the Sabbath day, he said:
"Its requirement is a cessation of labor. In its enactment, the
legislature has given the sanction of law to a rule of conduct
which the entire civilized world recognizes as essential to the
physical and moral wellbeing of society. Upon no subject is there
such a concurrence of opinion, among philosophers, moralists, and
statesmen of all nations, as on the necessity of periodical
cessation of labor. One day in seven is the rule, founded in
experience and sustained by science. . . . The prohibition of
secular business on Sunday is advocated on the ground that by it
the general welfare is advanced, labor protected, and the moral and
physical wellbeing of society is promoted."
So, in
Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio St. 387, 392, Judge
Thurman, delivering the unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court of
Ohio, said:
"We are then to regard the statute under consideration as a mere
municipal or police regulation, whose validity is neither
strengthened nor weakened by the fact that the day of rest it
enjoins is the Sabbath day. Wisdom requires that men should refrain
from labor at least one day in seven, and the advantages of having
the day of rest fixed, and so fixed as to happen at regularly
recurring intervals, are too obvious to be overlooked. It was
within the constitutional competency of the General Assembly to
require the cessation of labor, and to name the day of rest."
To the same general effect are many cases:
Specht v.
Commonwealth, 8 Penn.St. 312, 322;
Commonwealth v.
Has, 122 Mass. 40, 42;
Frolickstein v. Mobile, 40
Ala. 725;
Ex Parte Andrews, 18 Cal. 678, in which the
dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE FIELD in
Ex Parte
Newman, 9 Cal. 502, was approved;
State v. Railroad,
24 W.Va. 783;
Scales v. State, 47 Ark. 476, 482;
State
v. Ambs, 20 Mo. 214;
Mayor etc. v. Linck, 12 Lea 499,
515.
The same principles were announced by the Supreme Court of
Georgia in the present case. As the contention is that that court
erred in not adjudging the statute in question to be
unconstitutional, it is appropriate that the grounds upon which it
proceeded should fully appear in this opinion. That court, speaking
by Chief Justice Bleckley, said:
"There can be no
Page 163 U. S. 306
well founded doubt of its being a police regulation, considering
it merely as ordaining the cessation of ordinary labor and business
during one day in every week, for the frequent and total suspension
of the toils, care, and strain of mind or muscle incident to
pursuing an occupation or common employment is beneficial to every
individual, and incidentally to the community at large, the general
public. Leisure is no less essential than labor to the wellbeing of
man. Short intervals of leisure at stated periods reduce wear and
tear, promote health, favor cleanliness, encourage social
intercourse, afford opportunity for introspection and
retrospection, and tend in a high degree to expand the thoughts and
sympathies of people, enlarge their information, and elevate their
morals. They learn how to be, and come to realize that being is
quite as important as doing. Without frequent leisure, the process
of forming character could only be begun. It could never advance or
be completed. People would be mere machines of labor or business,
nothing more. If a law which, in essential respects, betters for
all the people the conditions, sanitary, social, and individual,
under which their daily life is carried on, and which contributes
to insure for each, even against his own will, his minimum
allowance of leisure, cannot be rightfully classed as a police
regulation, it would be difficult to imagine any law that
could."
That court further said:
"With respect to the selection of the particular day in each
week which has been set apart by our statute as the rest day of the
people, religious views and feelings may have had a controlling
influence. We doubt not that they did have, and it is probable that
the same views and feelings had a very powerful influence in
dictating the policy of setting apart any day whatever as a day of
enforced rest. But neither of these considerations is destructive
of the police nature and character of the statute. If good and
sufficient police reasons underlie it, and substantial police
purposes are involved in its provisions, these reasons and purposes
constitute its civil and legal justification, whether they were or
not the direct and immediate motives which induced its passage and
have for so long a
Page 163 U. S. 307
time kept it in force. Courts are not concerned with the mere
beliefs and sentiments of legislators, or with the motives which
influence them in enacting laws which are within legislative
competency. That which is properly made a civil duty by statute is
nonetheless so because it is also a real or supposed religious
obligation; nor is the statute vitiated or in anywise weakened by
the chance or even the certainty that, in passing it, the
legislative mind was swayed by the religious, rather than by the
civil, aspect of the measure. Doubtless it is a religious duty to
pay debts, but no one supposes that this is any obstacle to its
being exacted as a civil duty. With few exceptions, the same may be
said of the whole catalogue of duties specified in the Ten
Commandments. Those of them which are purely and exclusively
religious in their nature cannot be made civil duties, but all the
rest of them may be, insofar as they involve conduct, as
distinguished from mere operations of mind or states of the
affections. Opinions may differ, and they really do differ, as to
whether abstaining from labor on Sunday is a religious duty; but
whether it is or is not, it is certain that the Legislature of
Georgia has prescribed it as a civil duty. The statute can fairly
and rationally be treated as a legitimate police regulation, and,
thus treated, it is a valid law. There is a wide difference between
keeping a day holy as a religious observance and merely forbearing
to labor on that day in one's ordinary vocation or business
pursuit."
Hennington v. State, 90 Ga. 396-399.
Assuming, then, that both upon principle and authority, the
statute of Georgia is in every substantial sense a police
regulation established under the general authority possessed by the
legislature to provide by laws, for the wellbeing of the people, we
proceed to consider whether it is in conflict with the Constitution
of the United States.
The defendant contends that the running on the Sabbath day of
railroad cars, laden with interstate freight, is committed
exclusively to the control and supervision of the national
government, and that although Congress has not taken any
affirmative action upon the subject, state legislation
interrupting,
Page 163 U. S. 308
even for a limited time only, interstate commerce, whatever may
be its object and however essential such legislation may be for the
comfort, peace, and safety of the people of the state, is a
regulation of interstate commerce forbidden by the Constitution of
the United States. Is this view of the Constitution and of the
relations between the states and the general government sustained
by the former decisions of this Court? Is the admitted general
power of a state to provide by legislation for the health, the
morals, and the general welfare of its people so fettered that it
may not enact any law whatever that relates to or affects in any
degree the conduct of commerce among the states? If the people of a
state deem it necessary to their peace, comfort, and happiness to
say nothing of the public health and the public morals, that one
day in each week be set apart by law as a day when business of all
kinds carried on within the limits of that state shall cease,
whereby all persons of every race and condition in life may have an
opportunity to enjoy absolute rest and quiet, is that result, so
far as interstate freight traffic is concerned, attainable only
through an affirmative act of Congress giving its assent to such
legislation?
The argument in behalf of the defendants rests upon the
erroneous assumption that the statute of Georgia is such a
regulation of interstate commerce as is forbidden by the
Constitution, without reference to affirmative action by Congress,
and not merely a statute enacted by the state under its police
power, and which, although in some degree affecting interstate
commerce, does not go beyond the necessities of the case, and
therefore is valid at least until Congress interferes.
The distinction here suggested is not new in our jurisprudence.
It has been often recognized and enforced by this Court. In
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,
22 U. S. 203,
22 U. S. 210,
this Court recognized the possession by each state of a general
power of legislation that
"embraces everything within the territory of a state not
surrendered to the general government, all which can be most
advantageously exercised by the states themselves."
Inspection laws, although having, as the Court said in that
case, "a remote and considerable influence on
Page 163 U. S. 309
commerce," are yet within the authority of the states to enact
because no direct general power over the objects of such laws was
granted to Congress. So also, quarantine laws of every description,
if they have real relation to the objects named in them, are to be
referred to the power which the states have to make provision for
the health and safety of their people. But neither inspection,
quarantine, nor health laws enacted by a state have been adjudged
void by force alone of the Constitution and in the absence of
congressional legislation, simply because they remotely, or even
directly, affected or temporarily suspended commerce among the
states and with foreign nations. Of course, if the inspection,
quarantine, or health laws of a state, passed under its reserved
power to provide for the health, comfort, and safety of its people,
comes into conflict with an act of Congress, passed under its power
to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, such local
regulations, to the extent of the conflict, must give way in order
that the supreme law of the land -- an act of Congress passed in
pursuance of the constitution -- may have unobstructed operation.
The possibility of conflict between state and national enactments,
each to be referred to the undoubted powers of the state and the
nation, respectively, was not overlooked in
Gibbons v.
Ogden, and Chief Justice Marshall said:
"The framers of our Constitution foresaw this state of things,
and provided for it, by declaring the supremacy not only of itself,
but of the laws made in pursuance of it. The nullity of any act
inconsistent with the Constitution is produce by the declaration
that the Constitution is the supreme law. The appropriate
application of that part of the clause which confers the same
supremacy on laws and treaties is to such acts of the state
legislatures as do not transcend these powers, but, though enacted
in the execution of acknowledged state powers, interfere with or
are contrary to the laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the
Constitution, or some treaty made under the authority of the United
States. In every such case, the act of Congress or the treaty is
supreme, and the law of the state, though enacted in the exercise
of powers not controverted, must yield to it. "
Page 163 U. S. 310
These principles are illustrated in numerous decisions of this
Court, to some of which it is proper to refer.
In
Willson v. Black Bird Creek
Marsh Company, 2 Pet. 245,
27 U. S.
251-252, it appeared that that company claimed the
right, under a statute of Delaware, to place a dam across a
navigable creek, up which the tide flowed for some distance, and
thereby abridge the rights of those accustomed to use the stream.
This Court, after observing that the construction of the dam would
enhance the value of the adjoining land, and probably improve the
health of the inhabitants, and that such an abridgment of private
rights, unless it came in conflict with the Constitution or a law
of the United States, was an affair between the government of
Delaware and its citizens, of which this Court could not take
cognizance, said:
"The counsel for plaintiffs in error insist that it comes in
conflict with the power of the United States 'to regulate commerce
with foreign nations and among the several states.' If Congress had
passed any act which bore upon the case -- any act in execution of
the power to regulate commerce, the object of which was to control
state legislation over those small navigable creeks into which the
tide flows, and which abound throughout the lower country of the
Middle and Southern states -- we should feel not much difficulty in
saying that a state law coming in conflict with such act would be
void. But Congress has passed no such act. The repugnancy of the
law of Delaware to the Constitution is placed entirely on its
repugnancy to the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations
and among the several states, a power which has not been so
exercised as to affect the question. We do not think that the act
empowering the Black Bird Creek Marsh Company to place a dam across
the creek can, under all the circumstances of the case, be
considered as repugnant to the power to regulate commerce in its
dormant state, or as being in conflict with any law passed on the
subject."
Notwithstanding that case has been sometimes criticized, its
authority has never been questioned in this Court. On the contrary,
it was declared in
Pound v. Turck, 95 U. S.
459,
95 U. S. 463,
that it had never been overruled, but had always been
sustained.
Page 163 U. S. 311
In
Gilman v.
Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713,
70 U. S. 729,
the question was as to the validity of an act of the legislature of
Pennsylvania authorizing the construction of a bridge over the
Schuylkill, "an ancient river and common highway of the state." It
appeared that the bridge, if constructed, would prevent the passage
up the river of vessels having masts, interfere with commerce, and
materially injure the value of certain wharf and dock property on
the river. Congress had not passed any act on the subject, but the
contention was that such an interference with commerce on a public
navigable water was inconsistent with the Constitution of the
United States. The Court said:
"It must not be forgotten that bridges, which are connecting
parts of turnpikes, streets, and railroads, are means of commercial
transportation, as well as navigable waters, and that the commerce
which passes over a bridge may be much greater than would ever be
transported on the water it obstructs. It is for the municipal
power to weigh the considerations which belong to the subject, and
to decide which shall be preferred and how far either shall be made
subservient to the other. The states have always exercised this
power, and from the nature and objects of the two systems of
government, they must always continue to exercise it, subject,
however, in all cases to the paramount authority of Congress
whenever the power of the states shall be exerted within the sphere
of the commercial power which belongs to the nation."
In
Cooley v. Board of Wardens,
etc., 12 How. 299,
53 U. S. 320,
it was adjudged that the mere grant to Congress of the power to
regulate commerce did not deprive the states of power to regulate
pilots on the public navigable waters of the United States.
In
Owners of Brig James Gray v.
Owners of Ship John Fraser, 21 How. 184,
62 U. S. 187,
the Court held to be valid two ordinances of the City of
Charleston, one providing that no vessel should be in the harbor of
that city for more than twenty-four hours, and inflicting certain
penalties for every disobedience of the ordinance, the other
requiring all vessels anchored in the harbor to keep a light
burning on board from
Page 163 U. S. 312
dark until daylight, suspended conspicuously amidships, twenty
feet high from the deck. The Court said:
"The power of the city authorities to pass and enforce these two
ordinances is disputed by the libelants. But regulations of this
kind are necessary and indispensable in every commercial port for
the convenience and safety of commerce. And the local authorities
have a right to prescribe at what wharf a vessel may lie, and how
long she may remain there; where she may unload or take on board
particular cargoes; where she may anchor in the harbor, and for
what time, and what description of light she shall display at
night, to warn the passing vessels of her position, and that she is
at anchor, and not under sail. They are like to the local usages of
navigation in different ports, and every vessel, from whatever part
of the world she may come, is bound to take notice of them and
conform to them. And there is nothing in the regulations referred
to in the port of Charleston which is in conflict with any law of
Congress regulating commerce, or with the general admiralty
jurisdiction conferred on the courts of the United States."
In
Railroad Company v.
Fuller, 17 Wall. 560,
84 U. S. 567,
84 U. S. 570, the
question was as to the validity of a statute of Iowa requiring that
each railroad company should, in the month of September, annually,
fix its rates for the transportation of passengers and of freights
of different kinds; that it should put up a printed copy of such
rates at all its stations and depots, and cause a copy to remain
posted during the year, and that a failure to fulfill these
requirements, or the charging of a higher rate than was posted,
should subject the offending company to the payment of the penalty
prescribed. The Court said:
"In all other respects, there is no interference. No other
restraint is imposed. Except in these particulars, the company may
exercise all its faculties as it shall deem proper. No
discrimination is made between local and interstate freights, and
no attempt is made to control the rates that may be charged. It is
only required that the rates shall be fixed, made public, and
honestly adhered to. In this there is nothing unreasonable or
onerous. The public welfare is promoted without wrong or injury to
the company. The statute was
Page 163 U. S. 313
doubtless deemed to be called for by the interests of the
community to be affected by it, and rests upon a solid foundation
of reason and justice. It is not, in the sense of the Constitution,
in any wise a regulation of commerce."
Again:
"If the requirements of the statute here in question were, as
contended by the counsel for the plaintiff in error,
regulations of commerce, the question would arise whether,
regarded in the light of the authorities referred to and of reason
and principle, they are not regulations of such a character as to
be valid until superseded by the paramount action of Congress. But,
as we are unanimously of opinion that they are merely police
regulations, it is unnecessary to pursue the subject."
In
Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S.
465,
95 U. S.
470-473, the Court, while holding to be invalid under
the Constitution of the United States a statute of Missouri which
met at the borders of the state a large and common subject of
commerce and prohibited its crossing the line during two-thirds of
each year except subject to onerous conditions which obstructed
interstate commerce and worked a discrimination between the
property of citizens of one state and that of citizens of other
states, said that
"the deposit in Congress of the power to regulate foreign
commerce and commerce among the states was not a surrender of that
which may properly be denominated police power,"
that that power extended "to making regulations of domestic
order, morals, health, and safety," but could not be exercised over
a subject confided exclusively in Congress, nor invade the domain
of the national government, nor by any law of a police nature
interfere with transportation into or through the state, "beyond
what is absolutely necessary for its self-protection." The court,
in that case, concluded with these words:
"The police power of a state cannot obstruct foreign commerce or
interstate commerce
beyond the necessity for its exercise,
and, under color of it, objects not within its scope cannot be
secured at the expense of the protection afforded by the
Constitution. And as its range sometimes comes very near to the
field committed by the Constitution to Congress, it is the duty of
the courts to guard vigilantly against any
needless
intrusion. "
Page 163 U. S. 314
A leading case upon the subject is that of
Morgan v.
Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455,
118 U. S.
463-465, which related to certain quarantine laws of
Louisiana the validity of which was questioned, partly upon the
ground that they were inconsistent with the power of Congress to
regulate commerce among the states. This Court said:
"Is the law under consideration void as a regulation of
commerce? Undoubtedly it is in some sense a regulation of commerce.
It arrests a vessel on a voyage which may have been a long one. It
may affect commerce among the states when the vessel is coming from
some other state of the Union than Louisiana, and it may affect
commerce with foreign nations when the vessel arrested comes from a
foreign port. This interruption of the voyage may be for days or
weeks. It extends to the vessel, the cargo, the officers and
seamen, and the passengers. Insofar as it provides a rule by which
this power is exercised, it cannot be denied that it regulates
commerce. We do not think it necessary to enter into the inquiry
whether, notwithstanding this, it is to be classed among those
police powers which were retained by the states as exclusively
their own, and therefore not ceded to Congress. For while it may be
a police power in the sense that all provisions for the health,
comfort, and security of the citizens are police regulations and an
exercise of the police power, it has been said more than once in
this Court that even where such powers are so exercised as to come
within the domain of federal authority as defined by the
Constitution, the latter must prevail.
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,
22 U. S.
210;
Henderson v. Mayor, 92 U. S.
259,
92 U. S. 272;
New Orleans
Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S.
650,
115 U. S. 661. But it may be
conceded that whenever Congress shall undertake to provide for the
commercial cities of the United States a general system of
quarantine or shall confide the execution of the details of such a
system to a national board of health or to local boards, as may be
found expedient, all state laws on the subject will be abrogated,
at least so far as the two are inconsistent. But, until this is
done, the laws of the state on the subject are valid."
Again.
"Quarantine laws belong to that class of state legislation
which, whether passed with intent to
Page 163 U. S. 315
regulate commerce or not, must be admitted to have that effect,
and which are valid until displaced or contravened by some
legislation of Congress."
Upon the subject of legislation enacted under the police power
of a state, and which, although affecting more or less commerce
among the states, was adjudged to be valid until displaced by some
act of Congress, the case of
Smith v. Alabama,
124 U. S. 465,
124 U. S. 474,
124 U. S. 479,
124 U. S. 482,
is instructive. A statute of Alabama made it unlawful for an
engineer on a railroad train in that state to operate an engine
upon the main line of the road used for the transportation of
passengers or freight without first undergoing an examination and
obtaining a license from a state board of examiners. The point was
made that the statute, in its application to engineers on
interstate trains, was a regulation of commerce among the states,
and repugnant to the Constitution. This Court referred to and
reaffirmed the principle announced in
Sherlock v. Alling,
93 U. S. 99,
93 U. S. 102,
where it was said:
"In conferring upon Congress the regulation of commerce, it was
never intended to cut the states off from legislating on all
subjects relating to the health, life, and safety of their
citizens, though the legislation might indirectly affect the
commerce of the country. Legislation, in a variety of ways, may
affect commerce and persons engaged in it without constituting a
regulation of it within the meaning of the Constitution."
Referring to the fact that Congress had prescribed the
qualification for pilots and engineers of steam vessels engaged in
the coasting trade and navigating the inland waters of the United
States, while engaged in commerce among the states, the Court in
Smith v. Alabama said that the power of Congress
"might with equal authority be exercised in prescribing the
qualifications for locomotive engineers employed by railroad
companies engaged in the transportation of passengers and goods
among the states, and in that case would supersede any conflicting
provisions on the same subject made by local authority. But the
provisions on the subject contained in the statute of Alabama under
consideration are not regulations of interstate commerce. It is a
misnomer to call them such. Considered in themselves, they
Page 163 U. S. 316
are parts of that body of the local laws which, as we have
already seen, properly governs the relation between carriers of
passengers and merchandise and the public who employ them, which
are not displaced until they come in conflict with express
enactments of Congress in the exercise of its power over commerce
and which, until so displaced according to the evident intention of
Congress, remain as the law governing carriers in the discharge of
their obligations, whether engaged in the purely internal commerce
of the state or in commerce among the states. No objection to the
statute as an impediment on the free transaction of commerce among
the states can be found in any of its special provisions."
Again:
"We find, therefore, first that the statute of Alabama the
validity of which is under consideration is not, considered in its
own nature, a regulation of interstate commerce, even when applied
as in the case under consideration; secondly, that it is properly
an act of legislation within the scope of the admitted power
reserved to the state to regulate the relative rights and duties of
persons being and acting within its territorial jurisdiction,
intended to operate so as to secure for the public safety of
persons and property; and, thirdly that, so far as it affects
transactions of commerce among the states, it does so indirectly,
incidentally, and remotely, and not so as to burden or impede them,
and, in the particulars in which it touches those transactions at
all, it is not in conflict with any express enactment of Congress
on the subject, nor contrary to any intention of Congress to be
presumed from its silence."
So, in
Nashville &c. Railway v. Alabama,
128 U. S. 96,
128 U. S. 99,
128 U. S. 101,
which involved the validity of a state enactment which, for the
protection of the traveling public, declared anyone disqualified
from serving on railroad lines within the state who had color
blindness and defective vision, and which statute was equally
applicable to domestic and interstate railroad trains, the Court
said:
"It is conceded that the power of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce is plenary; that, as incident to it, Congress
may legislate as to the qualifications, duties, and liabilities of
employees and others on railway trains engaged in that commerce,
and that such legislation will
Page 163 U. S. 317
supersede any state action on the subject. But until such
legislation is had, it is clearly within the competency of the
states to provide against accidents on trains whilst within their
limits. Indeed it is a principle fully recognized by decisions of
state and federal courts that wherever there is any business in
which, either from the products created or the instrumentalities
used, there is danger to life or property, it is not only within
the power of the states, but it is among their plain duties, to
make provision against accidents likely to follow in such business,
so that the dangers attending it may be guarded against so far as
practicable."
Referring to some observations made in
Smith v. Alabama,
supra, the Court said:
"The same observations may be made with respect to the
provisions of the state law for the examination of parties to be
employed on railways with respect to their powers of vision. Such
legislation is not directed against commerce, and only affects it
incidentally, and therefore cannot be called, within the meaning of
the Constitution, a regulation of commerce."
These authorities make it clear that the legislative enactments
of the states passed under their admitted police powers, and having
a real relation to the domestic peace, order, health, and safety of
their people, but which by their necessary operation, affect to
some extent, or for a limited time, the conduct of commerce among
the states, are yet not invalid by force alone of the grant of
power to Congress to regulate such commerce, and, if not obnoxious
to some other constitutional provision or destructive of some right
secured by the fundamental law, are to be respected in the courts
of the Union until they are superseded and displaced by some act of
Congress passed in execution of the power granted to it by the
Constitution. Local laws of the character mentioned have their
source in the powers which the states reserved, and never
surrendered to Congress, of providing for the public health, the
public morals, and the public safety, and are not, within the
meaning of the Constitution, and considered in their own nature,
regulations of interstate commerce simply because, for a limited
time or to a limited extent, they cover
Page 163 U. S. 318
the field occupied by those engaged in such commerce. The
statute of Georgia is not directed against interstate commerce. It
establishes a rule of civil conduct applicable alike to all freight
trains, domestic as well as interstate. It applies to the
transportation of interstate freight the same rule precisely that
it applies to the transportation of domestic freight. And it places
the business of transporting freight in the same category as all
other secular business. It simply declares that, on and during the
day fixed by law as a day of rest for all the people within the
limits of the state from toil and labor incident to their callings,
the transportation of freight shall be suspended.
We are of opinion that such a law, although in a limited degree
affecting interstate commerce, is not, for that reason, a needless
intrusion upon the domain of federal jurisdiction, nor strictly a
regulation of interstate commerce, but, considered in its own
nature, is an ordinary police regulation designed to secure the
wellbeing and to promote the general welfare of the people within
the state by which it was established, and therefore not invalid by
force alone of the Constitution of the United States.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE WHITE,
dissenting.
Intercourse and trade between the states by means of railroads
passing through several states is a matter national in its
character, and admitting of uniform regulation. The power of
Congress to regulate it is exclusive, and under the Constitution it
is free and untrammeled except as Congress otherwise provides. This
statute, in requiring the suspension of interstate commerce for one
day in the week, amounts to a regulation of that commerce, and is
invalid because the power of Congress in that regard is exclusive.
But it is said that the act is not a regulation of commerce, but a
mere regulation of police, and that the so-called police power of a
state is plenary. The result, however, is the same. When a power of
a state and
Page 163 U. S. 319
a power of the general government come into collision, the
former must give way, and, as the freedom of interstate commerce is
secured by the Constitution except as Congress shall limit it, the
act is void because in violation of that freedom.