The transportation of livestock from state to state is a branch
of interstate commerce, and any specified rule or regulation in
respect of such transportation, which Congress may lawfully
prescribe or authorize and which may properly be deemed a
regulation of such commerce, is paramount throughout the Union.
When the entire subject of the transportation of livestock from
one state to another is taken under direct national supervision and
a system devised by which diseased stock may be excluded from
interstate commerce, all local or state regulations in respect of
such matters and covering the same ground will cease to have any
force, whether formally abrogated or not, and such rules and
regulations as Congress may lawfully prescribe or authorize will
alone control. The power which the states might thus exercise may
in this way be suspended until national control is abandoned and
the subject be thereby left under the power of the states.
The Act of Congress of May 29, 1884, 23 Stat. 31, c. 80, known
as the Animal Industry Act, does not cover the whole subject of the
transportation of livestock from one state to another.
The statute of Colorado of March 21, 1886, relating to the
introduction of infectious or contagious diseases among the cattle
and horses of that state, relates to matters not covered by the
Animal Industry Act of Congress, and is not in violation of the
Constitution of the United States.
No one is given by the Constitution of the United States the
right to introduce into a state, against its will, livestock
affected by a contagious, infectious or communicable disease, and
whose presence in the state will or may be injurious to its
domestic animals. The state -- Congress not having assumed charge
of the matter as involved in interstate commerce -- may protect its
people and their property against such dangers, taking care always
that the means employed to that end do not go beyond the
necessities of the case or unreasonably burden the exercise of
privileges secured by the Constitution of the United States.
The Colorado statute is not inconsistent with the clause of the
Constitution declaring that the citizens of each state shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several states, for it is applicable alike to the citizens of all
the states.
The principle is universal that legislation, whether by Congress
or by a state, must be taken to be valid unless the contrary is
made clearly to appear.
Page 187 U. S. 138
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error was convicted in the District Court of
Arapahoe County, Colorado, and sentenced to confinement for six
months in the county jail for a violation of the second section of
a statute enacted March 21, 1885, to prevent the introduction of
infectious or contagious diseases among the cattle and horses of
that state. Session Laws, Col. 1885, p. 335.
The judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the state,
and, the case having been brought here, it is insisted that, by the
final judgment the accused has been denied a right specially
claimed by him under the Constitution of the United States.
This position depends upon the inquiry whether a certain act of
Congress, to be presently referred to, has the scope and effect
attributed to it by the accused, and, that contention failing,
whether the statute under which he was convicted is repugnant to
that instrument.
After reciting that certain infectious and contagious diseases,
known as the Texas or splenetic fever, Spanish itch, and other
diseases of a dangerous and contagious nature, were prevalent among
cattle and horse stock in the states and territories south of the
36th parallel of north latitude, and that it was essential for the
protection of the cattle and horses of Colorado to prevent the
introduction and spread of all such diseases within that state, the
above statute provided:
"§ 1. It shall be unlawful for any person, association, or
corporation to bring or drive, or cause to be brought or driven,
into this state any cattle or horses having an infectious or
Page 187 U. S. 139
contagious disease, or which have been herded, or brought into
contact with any other cattle or horses laboring under such disease
at any time within ninety days prior to their importation into this
state."
"§ 2. It shall be unlawful for any person, association, or
corporation to bring or drive, or cause to be brought or driven,
into this state between the first day of April and the first day of
November any cattle or horses from a state, territory, or county,
south of the 36th parallel of north latitude unless said cattle or
horses have been held at some place north of the said parallel of
latitude for a period of at least ninety days prior to their
importation into this state, or unless the person, association, or
corporation owning or having charge of such cattle or horses shall
procure from the State Veterinary Sanitary Board a certificate, or
bill of health, to the effect that said cattle or horses are free
from all infectious or contagious diseases, and have not been
exposed at any time within ninety days prior thereto, to any of
said diseases. The expense of any inspection connected herewith to
be paid by the owner or owners of such cattle or horses."
"§ 3. Any person violating the provision of this act shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, on conviction, be
punished by a fine of not less than five hundred (500) dollars, nor
more than five thousand (5,000) dollars, or by imprisonment in the
county jail for a term of not less than six months, and not
exceeding three years, or by both such fine and imprisonment."
"§ 4. If any person, association, or corporation shall bring, or
cause to be brought, into this state, any cattle or horses, in
violation of the provisions of sections one or two of this act, or
shall, by false representation, procure a certificate of health, as
provided for in section two of this act, he or they shall be liable
in all cases for all damages sustained on account of disease
communicated by or from said cattle or horses; judgment for damages
in any such case, together with the costs of action, shall be a
lien upon all such cattle and horses, and a writ of attachment may
issue in the first instance without the giving of a bond, and the
court rendering such judgment may order the sale of said cattle or
horses, or so many thereof as
Page 187 U. S. 140
may be necessary to satisfy said judgments and costs. Such sale
shall be conducted as other sales under execution."
Session Laws, Col. 1885, p. 335.
There was no proof in the case that the particular cattle in
question had any dangerous, infectious, or contagious disease. But
it did appear that, after being kept a long while in Lubbock and
Cochran Counties, Texas, south of the 36th parallel of north
latitude, these cattle were shipped on the 20th day of June, 1901,
to Denver, Colorado, on their way to their ultimate destination in
Wyoming, without being first inspected as required by the statute
of the former state. The provisions of the Colorado statute were
ignored altogether as invalid legislation. Being asked by one of
the witnesses whether he had or not allowed the state board of
sanitary inspection to inspect the cattle or whether or not he had
procured from the State Veterinary Sanitary Board a certificate or
bill of health to the effect that the cattle were free from all
infectious or contagious diseases, the defendant said
"that the state board of sanitary inspection, through one of
their inspectors, had inspected the cattle against his will and
desire, but that he had not obtained from the board any certificate
or bill of health whatsoever. But he said that he immediately
theretofore had had the cattle inspected by a duly authorized
inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States at
Hereford, in the State of Texas, and had obtained a certificate
from him to the effect that the same were free from any infectious
or contagious disease; that the reason he could not get a
certificate or bill of health from the state board of Colorado was
because he would not pay the expense of such inspection, and
because he had opposed such inspection as unnecessary and without
any warrant in law."
When refusing his assent to the state inspection, Reid showed to
the state authorities what he called a "United States
certificate."
The certificate was signed by "Arthur C. Hart, Ass't Inspector,
Bureau of Animal Industry." That officer certified that he had
carefully inspected the cattle in question at Hereford, Texas, and
found them "free from Texas or splenetic fever infection
Page 187 U. S. 141
(boophilus bovis), or any other infectious or contagious
disease," and that "no Texas fever infection is known to exist
where they have been kept or on the trail over which they have
passed." Below the signature of the assistant inspector was the
following unsigned printed memorandum:
"Animals which have been inspected and certified by an inspector
of the U.S. Bureau of Animal Industry, and are free from disease,
have the right to go into any state and be sold for any purpose,
without further inspection or the exaction of fees."
The above, together with certain published regulations prepared
and issued by the Bureau of Animal Industry, was all the evidence
in the case.
The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury:
That it was unnecessary for the defendant to procure from the
Colorado Veterinary Sanitary Board a certificate or bill of health
to the effect that his cattle were free from infectious or
contagious diseases and had not been exposed at any time within
ninety days prior thereto to any of said diseases, for the reason
that the cattle had previously been inspected
"according to the statute of the United States in such case made
and provided, and according to the rules and regulations pursuant
to said statute, promulgated by the Department of Agriculture, by a
duly authorized inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the
United States, stationed at Hereford, in the State of Texas, and
had been duly certified by such United States inspector to be free
from any infectious or contagious disease, and for the further
reason that he, the said defendant, then and there exhibited and
showed to the said state inspector of Colorado the said inspection
certificate of the United States to said cattle,"
and
That the Colorado statute, approved March 21, 1885, and under
which defendant was prosecuted, was repugnant to the provision of
the Constitution of the United States giving Congress power to
regulate commerce among the states, as well as to the provision
declaring that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all
the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states,
and was null and void as imposing unnecessary and unlawful burdens
and restrictions upon interstate commerce.
Page 187 U. S. 142
The court refused to so instruct the jury, but instructed them
that if they believed from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
that the defendant did, on or about the 20th day of June, 1901 --
that is, between the first day of April and the first day of
November of that year,
"unlawfully bring or drive, or cause to be brought or driven
into the State of Colorado and into the County of Arapahoe the
cattle as mentioned in the information or any part thereof, from
certain counties south of the 36th parallel, north latitude, and
that said cattle had not been held theretofore at some place north
of said parallel of latitude for a period of at least ninety days
prior to the importation of said cattle into said State of
Colorado, and that the said defendant had not procured from the
State Veterinary Sanitary Board of Colorado a certificate or bill
of health to the effect that said cattle were free from infectious
or contagious diseases, and to the effect that the same had not
been exposed at any time within ninety days prior thereto to any of
said diseases, and that then and there the said defendant did
refuse and decline to procure or permit anyone for him to procure
such certificate or bill of health, and did refuse and decline to
pay or allow, or suffer or permit anyone for him to pay, the
expense of any inspection so as by the act prescribed -- then and
in that event it is your duty to find the defendant guilty as
charged in this information."
The contention here of the defendant is substantially that the
subject of the transportation of cattle from one state to another
has been so far covered by the act of Congress known as the animal
industry Act of May 29th, 1884 (23 Stat. 31, c. 60, U.S.Comp.Stat.
1901, p. 299), that, after its passage, no enactment by the state
upon the same subject was permissible, and that, even in the
absence of legislation by Congress, the Colorado statute is
invalid, in that, by its natural or necessary operation, it
unreasonably obstructs that freedom of commerce among the states
which the Constitution established. These questions are recognized
by the court as of great importance, and have received its most
careful consideration.
Taking up the first branch of the defendant's contention, let us
look at the controlling provisions of the above act of
Congress,
Page 187 U. S. 143
and ascertain whether that statute has the scope and effect
claimed for it.
The statute is entitled
"An Act for the Establishment of a Bureau of Animal Industry, to
Prevent the Exportation of Diseased Cattle, and to Provide Means
for the Suppression and Extirpation of Pleuro-pneumonia and Other
Contagious Diseases among Domestic Animals."
By the first section, the Commissioner of Agriculture is
directed to organize in his department a Bureau of Animal Industry,
to appoint a chief thereof, who shall be a competent veterinary
surgeon and whose duty it shall be
"to investigate and report upon the condition of the domestic
animals of the United States, their protection and use, and also
inquire into and report the causes of contagious, infectious, and
communicable diseases among them, and the means for the prevention
and cure of the same, and to collect such information on these
subjects as shall be valuable to the agricultural and commercial
interests of the country."
§ 1.
By the second section, the Commissioner is authorized to appoint
two competent agents, practical stock raisers or experience
businessmen familiar with questions pertaining to commercial
transactions in livestock, whose duty it shall be, under the
instructions of the Commissioner,
"to examine and report upon the best methods of treating,
transporting, and caring for animals, and the means to be adopted
for the suppression and extirpation of contagious pleuro-pneumonia,
and to provide against the spread of other dangerous contagious,
infectious, and communicable diseases."
§ 2.
The third section makes it
"the duty of the Commissioner of Agriculture to prepare such
rules and regulations as he may deem necessary for the speedy and
effectual suppression and extirpation of said diseases, and to
certify such rules and regulations to the executive authority of
each state and territory, and invite said authorities to cooperate
in the execution and enforcement of this act."
And
"whenever the plans and methods of the Commissioner of
Agriculture shall be accepted by any state or territory in which
pleuro-pneumonia or other contagious, infectious, or communicable
disease is declared to exist,
Page 187 U. S. 144
or such state or territory shall have adopted plans and methods
for the suppression and extirpation of said diseases, and such
plans and methods shall be accepted by the Commissioner of
Agriculture, and whenever the governor of a state or other properly
constituted authorities signify their readiness to cooperate for
the extinction of any contagious, infectious, or communicable
disease in conformity with the provisions of this act, the
Commissioner of Agriculture is hereby authorized to expend so much
of the money appropriated by this act as may be necessary in such
investigations, and in such disinfection and quarantine measures as
may be necessary to prevent the spread of the disease from one
state or territory into another."
§ 3.
In order "to promote the exportation of livestock from the
United States," the Commissioner was directed to
"make special investigation as to the existence of
pleuro-pneumonia, or any contagious, infectious, or communicable
disease, along the dividing lines between the United States and
foreign countries, and along the lines of transportation from all
parts of the United States to ports from which livestock are
exported, and make report of the results of such investigation to
the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall from time to time
establish such regulations concerning the exportation and
transportation of livestock as the results of said investigations
may require,"
(§ 4), and that,
"to prevent the exportation from any port of the United States
to any port in a foreign country of livestock affected with any
contagious, infectious, or communicable disease, and especially
pleuro-pneumonia,"
the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to take such steps
and adopt such measures, not inconsistent with the provisions of
the act, as he might deem necessary. § 5.
By another section of the act, all railroad companies within the
United States, or the owners or masters of any steam or sailing
vessel or other vessel or boat, were forbidden to receive for
transportation or transport from one state or territory to another,
or from any state into the District of Columbia, or from the
District into any state,
"any livestock affected with any contagious, infectious, or
communicable disease, and especially the disease known as
pleuro-pneumonia; nor shall
Page 187 U. S. 145
any person, company, or corporation deliver for such
transportation to any railroad company, or master or owner of any
boat or vessel, any livestock,
knowing them to be affected
with any contagious, infectious, or communicable disease; nor shall
any person, company, or corporation drive on foot or transport in
private conveyance from one state or territory to another, or from
any state into the District of Columbia, or from the District into
any state, any livestock, knowing them to be affected with any
contagious, infectious, or communicable disease, and especially the
disease known as pleuro-pneumonia:
Provided, That the
so-called splenetic or Texas fever shall not be considered a
contagious, infectious, or communicable disease within the meaning
of sections four, five, six and seven of this act, as to cattle
being transported by rail to market for slaughter, when the same
are unloaded only to be fed and watered in lots on the way
thereto."
§ 6.
Other provisions of the act are as follows:
"§ 7. That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of
Agriculture to notify in writing the proper officials or agents of
any railroad, steamboat, or other transportation company doing
business in or through any infected locality, and by publication in
such newspapers as he may select, of the existence of said
contagion, and any person or persons operating any such railroad,
or master or owner of any boat or vessel, or owner or custodian of
or person having control over such cattle or other livestock within
such infected district, who shall knowingly violate the provisions
of section six of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and,
upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one
hundred nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for
not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment."
"§ 8. That whenever any contagious, infectious, or communicable
disease affecting domestic animals, and especially the disease
known as pleuro-pneumonia, shall be brought into or shall break out
in the District of Columbia, it shall be the duty of the
commissioners of said District to take measures to suppress the
same promptly and to prevent the same from spreading, and for this
purpose the said commissioners are
Page 187 U. S. 146
hereby empowered to order and require that any premises, farm,
or farms where such disease exists or has existed, be put in
quarantine; to order all or any animals coming into the District to
be detained at any place or places for the purpose of inspection
and examination; to prescribe regulations for and to require the
destruction of animals affected with contagious, infectious, or
communicable disease, and for the proper disposition of their hides
and carcasses; to prescribe regulations for disinfection, and such
other regulations as they may deem necessary to prevent infection
or contagion being communicated, and shall report to the
Commissioner of Agriculture whatever they may do in pursuance of
the provisions of this section."
"§ 9. That it shall be the duty of the several United States
district attorneys to prosecute all violations of this act which
shall be brought to their notice or knowledge by any person making
the complaint under oath, and the same shall be heard before any
district or circuit court of the United States or territorial court
holden within the district in which the violation of this act has
been committed."
23 Stat. 31, c. 60.
It may be here stated that, by the Act of February 9th, 1889,
the Department of Agriculture was made one of the Executive
Departments of the government, and placed under the supervision and
control of a Secretary of Agriculture, 25 Stat. 659, and that, by
the Act of July 14, 1890, the Secretary was vested with all the
authority which by the above Act of May 29th, 1884, was conferred
upon the Commissioner of Agriculture. 26 Stat. 282, c. 707.
It is quite true, as urged on behalf of the defendant, that the
transportation of livestock from state to state is a branch of
interstate commerce, and that any specified rule or regulation in
respect of such transportation which Congress may lawfully
prescribe or authorize and which may properly be deemed a
regulation of such commerce is paramount throughout the Union. So
that, when the entire subject of the transportation of livestock
from one state to another is taken under direct national
supervision and a system devised by which diseased stock may be
excluded from interstate commerce, all
Page 187 U. S. 147
local or state regulations in respect of such matters and
covering the same ground will cease to have any force, whether
formally abrogated or not, and such rules and regulations as
Congress may lawfully prescribe or authorize will alone control.
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,
22 U. S. 210;
Morgan v. Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455,
118 U. S. 464;
Hennington v. Georgia, 163 U. S. 299,
163 U. S. 317;
N.Y., N.H. & H. R. Co. v. New York, 165 U.
S. 628,
165 U. S. 631;
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Co. v. Haber,
169 U. S. 613,
169 U. S. 626;
Rasmussen v. Idaho, 181 U. S. 198,
181 U. S. 200.
The power which the states might thus exercise may in this way be
suspended until national control is abandoned and the subject be
thereby left under the police power of the states.
But the difficulty with the defendant's case is that Congress
has not by any statute covered the whole subject of the
transportation of livestock among the several states, and, except
in certain particulars not involving the present issue, has left a
wide field for the exercise by the states of their power, by
appropriate regulations, to protect their domestic animals against
contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases.
An examination of the animal industry act will make this
entirely clear. Three distinct subjects are embraced by that act.
One is the ascertainment through the Agricultural Department of the
condition of the domestic animals of the United States, the causes
of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases affecting them,
the best methods for treating, transporting, and caring for
animals, the means to be adopted for the suppression and
extirpation of such diseases, particularly that of contagious
pleuro-pneumonia, and to collect such information on those subjects
as will be valuable to the agricultural and commercial interests of
the country. Congress did not assume to declare that "the rules and
regulations" which that Department might adopt as necessary "for
the speedy and effectual suppression and extirpation of said
diseases" should have in themselves, or apart from the action of a
state, any binding force upon the states. They were to be certified
to the executive authority of each state, and the cooperation of
such authorities in executing the act of Congress invited. If the
authorities of any state
Page 187 U. S. 148
adopted the plans and methods devised by the Department, or if
the state authorities adopted measures of their own which the
Department approved, then the money appropriated by Congress could
be used in conducting the required investigations, and in such
disinfection and quarantine measures as might be necessary to
prevent the spread of the diseases in question from one state or
territory into another. Congress did not intent to override the
power of the states to care for the safety of the property of their
peoples by such legislation as they deemed appropriate. It did not
undertake to invest any officer or agent of the Department with
authority to go into a state and, without its assent, take charge
of the work of suppressing or extirpating contagious, infectious,
or communicable diseases there prevailing, and which endangered the
health of domestic animals. Nor did Congress give the Department
authority by its officers or agents to inspect cattle within the
limits of a state, and give a certificate that should be of
superior authority in that or other states, or which should entitle
the owner to carry his cattle into or through another state without
reference to the reasonable and valid regulations which the latter
state may have adopted for the protection of its own domestic
animals. It should never be held that Congress intends to
supersede, or by its legislation suspend, the exercise of the
police powers of the states, even when it may do so, unless its
purpose to effect that result is clearly manifested. This Court has
said -- and the principle has been often reaffirmed -- that,
"in the application of this principle of supremacy of an act of
Congress in a case where the state law is but the exercise of a
reserved power, the repugnance or conflict should be direct and
positive, so that the two acts could not be reconciled or
consistently stand together."
Sinnott v.
Davenport, 22 How. 227,
63 U. S. 243.
The certificate given to the defendant by Assistant Inspector Hart
of the Bureau of Animal Industry was in itself without legal weight
in Colorado. As said in
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway
Company v. Haber, above cited:
"While the states were invited to cooperate with the general
government in the execution and enforcement of the act, whatever
power they had to protect their domestic cattle against such
diseases was left untouched and unimpaired
Page 187 U. S. 149
by the act of Congress."
Hence it was decided in that case that the animal industry act
did not stand in the way of the State of Kansas enacting a statute
declaring that any person driving, shipping, or transporting, or
causing to be shipped, driven, or transported into or through that
state, any cattle liable or capable of communicating Texas or
splenetic fever to domestic cattle should be liable to the person
injured thereby for all damages sustained by reason of the
communication of said disease of fever, to be recovered in a civil
action. We there held that the Kansas statute did nothing more than
establish a rule of civil liability in that state, affected no
regulation of interstate commerce that Congress had prescribed or
authorized, and impaired no right secured by the national
Constitution.
Another subject embraced by the act of Congress related to the
exportation from ports of the United States to ports in foreign
countries of livestock affected with contagious, infectious, or
communicable diseases, especially pleuro-pneumonia, and in relation
to that matter, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to
take such steps and adopt such measures, not inconsistent with the
act of Congress, as he deemed necessary. As the present case is not
one of the exportation of livestock to a foreign country, it is
unnecessary to consider what power, if any, remained with the
states after the passage of the animal industry act to suppress or
extirpate diseases that in fact affected livestock which it was the
purpose of the owners to export.
Still another subject covered by the act is the driving on foot
or transporting from one state or territory into another state or
territory, or from any state into the District of Columbia, or from
the District into any state, of any livestock known to be affected
with any contagious, infectious, or communicable disease. But this
provision does not cover the entire subject of the transporting or
shipping of diseased livestock from one state to another. The owner
of such stock, when bringing them into another state, may not know
them to be diseased, but they may, in fact be diseased, or the
circumstances may be such as fairly to authorize the state into
which
Page 187 U. S. 150
they are about to be brought to take such precautionary measures
as will reasonably guard its own domestic animals against danger
from contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases. The act of
Congress left the state free to cover that field by such
regulations as it deemed appropriate, and which only incidentally
affected the freedom of interstate commerce. Congress went no
farther than to make it an offense against the United States for
anyone
knowingly to take or send from one state or
territory to another state or territory, or into the District of
Columbia, or from the District into any state, livestock affected
with infectious or communicable disease. The animal industry act
did not make it an offense against the United States to send from
one state into another livestock which the shipper did not know
were diseased. The offense charged upon the defendant in the state
court was not the introduction into Colorado of cattle that he knew
to be diseased. He was charged with having brought his cattle into
Colorado from certain counties in Texas, south of the 36th parallel
of north latitude, without said cattle having been held at some
place north of said parallel of latitude for at least the time
required prior to their being brought into Colorado, and without
having procured from the State Veterinary Sanitary Board a
certificate or bill of health to the effect that his cattle, in
fact were free from all infectious or contagious diseases, and had
not been exposed at any time within ninety days prior thereto to
any such diseases, but had declined to procure such certificate or
have the inspection required by the statute. His knowledge as to
the actual condition of the cattle was of no consequence under the
state enactment, or under the charge made.
Our conclusion is that the statute of Colorado as here involved
does not cover the same ground as the act of Congress, and
therefore is not inconsistent with that act, and its
constitutionality is not to be questioned unless it be in violation
of the Constitution of the United States independently of any
legislation by Congress. The latter question we now proceed to
examine.
Certain principles are well settled by the former decisions of
this Court. One is that the purpose of a statute, in whatever
language it may be framed, must be determined by its natural
Page 187 U. S. 151
and reasonable effect.
Henderson v. New York,
92 U. S. 259,
92 U. S. 268.
Another is, that a state may not, by its police regulations,
whatever their object, unnecessarily burden foreign or interstate
commerce.
Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S.
465,
95 U. S. 472.
Again, the acknowledged police powers of a state cannot
legitimately be exerted so as to defeat or impair a right secured
by the national Constitution, any more than to defeat or impair a
statute passed by Congress in pursuance of the powers granted to
it.
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,
22 U. S. 210;
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company v. Haber,
169 U. S. 613,
169 U. S.
625-626, and authorities cited.
Now it is said that the defendant has a right under the
Constitution of the United States to ship livestock from one state
to another state. This will be conceded on all hands. But the
defendant is not given by that instrument the right to introduce
into a state, against its will, livestock affected by a contagious,
infectious, or communicable disease, and whose presence in the
state will or may be injurious to its domestic animals. The state
-- Congress not having assumed charge of the matter as involved in
interstate commerce -- may protect its people and their property
against such dangers, taking care always that the means employed to
that end do not go beyond the necessities of the case or
unreasonably burden the exercise of privileges secured by the
Constitution of the United States.
Is the statute of Colorado liable to the objection just stated?
Can the courts hold that, upon its face, it unreasonably obstructs
the exercise of the general right secured by the Constitution to
ship or send recognized articles of commerce from one state to
another without interference by local authority? Those questions
must be answered in the negative. The Colorado statute in effect
declares that livestock coming between the dates and from the
territory specified are ordinarily in such condition that their
presence in the state may be dangerous to its domestic animals, and
hence the requirement that, before being brought or sent into the
state, they shall either be kept at some place north of the 36th
parallel of north latitude for at least ninety days prior to their
importation into the state or the owner must procure from the State
Veterinary Sanitary Board
Page 187 U. S. 152
a certificate or bill of health that the cattle are free from
all infectious or contagious diseases, and have not been exposed to
any of said diseases at any time within ninety days prior thereto.
As there is no evidence in the case as to the practical operation
of this regulation upon shippers of cattle, as it does not appear
otherwise than that the statute can be obeyed without serious
embarrassment or unreasonable cost, the court cannot assume
arbitrarily that the state acted wholly without authority or that
it unduly burdened the exercise of the privilege of engaging in
interstate commerce. The accused seems to have been content to rest
his defense upon such grounds as arose upon the face of the local
statute, without reference to any evidence bearing upon the
reasonableness or unreasonableness of the particular methods
adopted by the state to protect its domestic animals. He seems to
have been willing to risk the case upon the simple proposition --
based upon the words of the state enactment and upon the act of
Congress, reinforced by certain regulations made by the
Agricultural Department -- that the local statute was inconsistent
with that act, and with the general power of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce.
As, therefore, the statute does not forbid the introduction into
the state of all livestock coming from the defined territory --
that diseased as well as that not diseased -- but only prescribes
certain methods to protect the domestic animals of Colorado from
contact with livestock coming from that territory between certain
dates, and as those methods have been devised by the state under
the power to protect the property of its people from injury, and do
not appear upon their face to be unreasonable, we must, in the
absence of evidence showing the contrary, assume that they are
appropriate to the object which the state is entitled to
accomplish.
One other objection to the Colorado statute must be noticed --
namely, that it is inconsistent with the clause of the Constitution
declaring that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. This
position is untenable. The statute is equally applicable to
citizens of all the states. No discrimination is shown. No
privileges are granted to citizens of Colorado that are denied
Page 187 U. S. 153
to citizens of other states.
Kimmish v. Ball,
129 U. S. 217,
129 U. S.
222.
The principle is universal that legislation, whether by Congress
or by a state, must be taken to be valid unless the contrary is
made clearly to appear, and as the contrary does not so appear, the
statute of Colorado is to be taken as a constitutional exercise of
the power of the state.
Perceiving no error in the judgment to the prejudice of the
plaintiff under the Constitution of the United States, the judgment
is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER dissented from the opinion and judgment of
the Court.