Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Reprinted from THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW, Vol. XIII, No. 4, November, 1919

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN 1918-1919. I

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE OCTOBER TERM, 19181

THOMAS REED POWELL

Columbia University

I. INTERSTATE COMMERCE

POWERS OF CONGRESS UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE

United States v. Hill2 by a vote of seven to two sustained the so-called Reed Amendment by which Congress prohibited the introduction of liquor into any state which forbade the sale or manufacture of liquor within its borders. West Virginia, though interdicting manufacture and sale, allowed any person to bring into the state for personal use a quart of liquor each month. Since Mr. Hill did only what West Virginia sanctioned, Mr Justice McReynolds for himself and Mr. Justice Clarke insisted that "the Reed Amendment in no proper sense regulates interstate commerce, but is a direct intermeddling with the state's internal affairs." He inquired rhetorically: "If Congress may deny liquor to those who live in a state simply because its manufacture is not permitted there, why may not this be done for any suggested reason, e.g. because the roads are bad or men are hanged for murder or coals are dug. Where is the limit?" For the majority Mr. Justice Day answered that the control of Congress over interstate commerce is not limited by state laws and that "the policy of Congress acting independently of the states may induce legislation without reference to the particular policy or law of any given state." Congress may exert its authority in view of the laws of the state or inde

1 For reviews of decisions in previous terms see American Political Science Review (1910) IV, 483-487; (1912) VI, 513–523; (1915) IX, 36-49; (1918) XII, 1749, 427-457, 640-666; (1919) XIII, 47–77, 229-250.

* (1919) 248 U. S. 420, 39 Sup. Ct. 143. See R. E. Cushman, "The National Police Power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution," 3 Minnesota Law Review 381, 409-411. See also 19 Columbia Law Review 79, 32 Harvard Law Review 733, 17 Michigan Law Review 511, and 28 Yale Law Journal 501.

607

NARVARD CON ESE LIBRARY,

GIFF OF THE AUTHJE

MAR 6 1928

pendently of those laws. This hardly answers the dissenting query of Mr. Justice McReynolds. There must be some limit to the power of Congress to make its prohibitions of interstate commerce dependent upon legislation in the state of destination where the congressional prohibition is not in furtherance of that state legislation. The sound basis for the decision must be the reasonableness of the relation between the congressional prohibition and the state laws upon which it is made contingent.3

There was division of opinion also in United States v. Ferger1 in which all the court but Mr. Justice Pitney thought it within the power of Congress to punish the counterfeiting and use of a fictitious interstate bill of lading, even though such bill related to no actual or contemplated commerce. The decision of the district court dismissing the indictment was said by the Chief Justice to assume mistakenly "that the power of Congress is to be necessarily tested by the intrinsic existence of commerce in the particular subject dealt with, instead of by the relation of that subject to commerce and its effect upon it.” The power of Congress under the commerce clause and the necessary-and-proper clause must include authority to deal with obstructions to interstate commerce "and with a host of other acts which, because of their relation to and influence upon interstate commerce, come within the power of Congress to regulate, although they are not interstate commerce in and of themselves." The undoubted power to regulate genuine interstate bills of lading carries with it the power to prevent the fraudulent and spurious imitation and thus to guard against impairing or weakening the credit and confidence which sustains interstate commerce.

In three cases it was held that an injured employee was engaged in interstate commerce so as to come within the federal Employers' Liability Act. New York Central Railroad Co. v. Porter involved a section man who was hit by a passing train while shoveling snow between platform and tracks used for both interstate and intrastate

In interpreting the Reed Amendment the principal case declined to limit its scope to the introduction of liquor for commercial purposes. In United States v. Gudger, (1919) 249 U. S. 373, 39 Sup. Ct. 323, the statute was held not applicable to liquor in transit through a dry state to a wet one. See 28 Yale Law Journal 836. See also Danziger v. Cooley, (1919) 248 U. S. 310, 39 Sup. Ct. 119.

⚫ (1919) 250 U. S. 199, 39 Sup. Ct. 445. The same point is affirmed in another case between the same parties decided the same day, 250 U. S. 207, 3 Sup. Ct. 447. See 32 Harvard Law Review 557.

commerce. Kinzell v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. had to do with a workman who was keeping a track clear for interstate trains by removing from a trestle the earth which accumulated above the tracks in the process of substituting a solid embankment for the trestle. In Philadelphia, B. & W. R. Co. v. Smith, the injured workman was a cook in a camp car run for the accommodation of a gang of bridge carpenters engaged in repairing bridges over which interstate trains were run. The carpenters were regarded as essential to the commerce over the bridge, and the cook was thought to be essential to the carpenters in the prosecution of their work and not a mere minister to their personal convenience.

In United Drug Co. v. Rectanus Co.,8 Mr. Justice Pitney reiterated the well-established principle that the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of trade-marks is only such as arises from the authority conferred by the commerce clause and that registration of a trademark under the Act of Congress has no bearing on a controversy with respect to alleged infringement in exclusively local trade.

Though the controversy over the federal Meat Inspection Act which came before the court in Pittsburgh Melting Co. v. Totten' appeared to be confined to a question of interpretation, Mr. Justice Day declared, without citation of authority, that "the enactment of the statute was within the power of Congress in order to prevent interstate and foreign shipment of impure or adulterated meat-food products." The act "provides an elaborate system of inspection of animals before slaughter, and of carcasses after slaughter and of meat-food products" prepared for interstate or foreign commerce, requires that products condemned by the federal inspectors "shall be destroyed for food purposes," and forbids transportation in interstate or foreign commerce of products which have not been inspected and approved.10

(1919) 250 U. S. 130, 39 Sup. Ct. 412.

7 (1919) 250 U. S. 101, 39 Sup. Ct. 396.

(1918) 248 U. S. 90, 39 Sup. Ct. 48. It is not clear that the principle asserted in this opinion was essential to the disposition of the controversy.

(1918) 248 U. S. 1, 39 Sup. Ct. 3.

10 In Carey v. South Dakota, (1919) 250 U. S. 118, 39 Sup. Ct. 403, an opportunity was presented to pass on the constitutionality of the federal Migratory Bird Act which has been disapproved by several of the lower federal courts, but the Supreme Court, by interpreting the provision that all birds of the designated kind which do not remain permanently within any one state are to be deemed within the custody of the United States as not precluding the operation of a state statute forbidding the shipment of dead birds, found it unnecessary

« AnteriorContinuar »