The Commerce Clause
Defining Commerce
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
22 U.S. 1 (1824)
Decision: Reversed
Vote: 8-0
Majority: Marshall, joined by Washington, Todd, Duvall, and Story
Concurrence: Johnson
Not participating: Thompson
Syllabus
The laws of New York granting to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right of navigating the waters of that State with steamboats are in collision with the acts of Congress regulating the coasting trade, which, being made in pursuance of the Constitution, are supreme, and the State laws must yield to that supremacy, even though enacted in pursuance of powers acknowledged to remain in the States.
Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court …
The appellant contends that this decree is erroneous, because the laws which purport to give the exclusive privilege it sustains, are repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States.
They are said to be repugnant:
1st. To that clause in the constitution which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce.
2d. To that which authorizes Congress to promote the progress of science and useful arts.
The State of New York maintains the constitutionality of these laws, and their Legislature, their Council of Revision, and their Judges, have repeatedly concurred in this opinion … No tribunal can approach the decision of this question, without feeling a just and real respect for that opinion which is sustained by such authority, but it is the province of this Court … not to bow to it implicitly, and the Judges must exercise, in the examination of the subject, that understanding which Providence has bestowed upon them …
This instrument [the constitution] contains an enumeration of powers expressly granted by the people to their government. It has been said that these powers ought to be construed strictly. But why ought they to be so construed? Is there one sentence in the constitution which gives countenance to this rule? In the last of the enumerated powers, that which grants, expressly, the means for carrying all others into execution, Congress is authorized “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” for the purpose. But this limitation on the means which may be used, is not extended to the powers which are conferred, nor is there one sentence in the constitution which has been pointed out by the gentlemen of the bar or which we have been able to discern that prescribes this rule. We do not, therefore, think ourselves justified in adopting it … If they contend only against that enlarged construction, which would intend words beyond their natural and obvious import, we might question the application of the term, but should not controvert the principle. If they contend for that narrow construction which, in support of some theory not to be found in the construction would deny to the government those powers which the words of the Granted usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the general views and objects of the instrument; for that narrow construction which would cripple the government, and render it unequal to the object for which it is declared to be instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly understood, render it impudent then we cannot perceive the propriety of this, strict construction, nor adopt it as the rule, by which the constitution is to be expounded …
The subject to be regulated is commerce, and our Constitution being, as was aptly said at the bar, one of enumeration, and not of definition, to ascertain the extent of the power, it becomes necessary to settle the meaning of the word. The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation. This would restrict a general term, applicable to many objects one of its significations. Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse. The mind can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between nations, which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation, which shall be silent on the admission of the vessels of the one nation into the ports of the other, and be confined to prescribing rules for the conduct of individuals, in the actual employment of buying and selling, or of barter.
If commerce does not include navigation, the government of the Union has no direct power over that subject, and can make no law prescribing what shall constitute American vessels, or requiring that they shall be navigated by American seamen. Yet this power has been exercised from the commencement of the government, has been exercised with the consent of all, and has been understood by all to be a commercial regulation, All America understands, and has uniformly understood, the word “commerce,” to comprehend navigation. It was so understood, and must have been so understood, when the constitution was framed. The power over commerce, including navigation, was one of the primary objects for which the people of America adopted their government, and must have been contemplated in forming it. The convention must have used the word or that sense, because all have understood it in that sense, and the attempt to restrict it comes too late.
If the opinion that “commerce,” as the word is used in the Constitution, comprehends navigation also, requires any additional confirmation, that additional confirmation is, we think, furnished by the words of the instrument itself.
It is a rule of construction acknowledged by all that the exceptions from a power mark its extent, for it would be absurd, as well as useless, to except from a granted power that which was not granted — that which the words of the grant could not comprehend. If, then, there are in the Constitution plain exceptions from the power over navigation, plain inhibitions to the exercise of that power in a particular way, it is a proof that those who made these exceptions, and prescribed these inhibitions, understood the power to which they applied as being granted …
The word used in the Constitution, then, comprehends, and has been always understood to comprehend, navigation within its meaning, and a power to regulate navigation is as expressly granted as if that term had been added to the word “commerce.”
To what commerce does this power extend? The Constitution informs us, to commerce “with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.”
It has, we believe, been universally admitted that these words comprehend every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations. No sort of trade can be carried on between this country and any other to which this power does not extend. It has been truly said that “commerce,” as the word is used in the Constitution, is a unit every part of which is indicated by the term.
If this be the admitted meaning of the word in its application to foreign nations, it must carry the same meaning throughout the sentence, and remain a unit, unless there be some plain intelligible cause which alters it.
The subject to which the power is next applied is to commerce “among the several States.” The word “among” means intermingled with. A thing which is among others is intermingled with them. Commerce among the States cannot stop at the external boundary line of each State, but may be introduced into the interior.
It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a power would be inconvenient, and is certainly unnecessary.
Comprehensive as the word “among” is, it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one. The phrase is not one which would probably have been selected to indicate the completely interior traffic of a State, because it is not an apt phrase for that purpose, and the enumeration of the particular classes of commerce to which the power was to be extended would not have been made had the intention been to extend the power to every description. The enumeration presupposes something not enumerated, and that something, if we regard the language or the subject of the sentence, must be the exclusively internal commerce of a State. The genius and character of the whole government seem to be that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally, but not to those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government. The completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself.
But, in regulating commerce with foreign nations, the power of Congress does not stop at the jurisdictional lines of the several States. It would be a very useless power if it could not pass those lines. The commerce of the United States with foreign nations is that of the whole United States. Every district has a right to participate in it. The deep streams which penetrate our country in every direction pass through the interior of almost every State in the Union, and furnish the means of exercising this right. If Congress has the power to regulate it, that power must be exercised whenever the subject exists. If it exists within the States, if a foreign voyage may commence or terminate at a port within a State, then the power of Congress may be exercised within a State …
We are now arrived at the inquiry — What is this power?
It is the power to regulate, that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution. These are expressed in plain terms, and do not affect the questions which arise in this case, or which have been discussed at the bar …
The power of Congress, then, comprehends navigation; within the limits of every State in the Union; so far as that navigation may be, in any manner, connected with “commerce with foreign nations, or among the several States, or with the Indian tribes.” It may, of consequence, pass the jurisdictional line of New York, and act upon the very waters to which the prohibition now under consideration applies …
But it has been urged with great earnestness that, although the power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States be coextensive with the subject itself, and have no other limits than are prescribed in the Constitution, yet the States may severally exercise the same power, within their respective jurisdictions …
The sole question is can a State regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States while Congress is regulating it?
The counsel for the respondent answer this question in the affirmative, and rely very much on the restrictions in the 10th section as supporting their opinion …
In our complex system, presenting the rare and difficult scheme of one General Government whose action extends over the whole but which possesses only certain enumerated powers, and of numerous State governments which retain and exercise all powers not delegated to the Union, contests respecting power must arise. Were it even otherwise, the measures taken by the respective governments to execute their acknowledged powers would often be of the same description, and might sometimes interfere. This, however, does not prove that the one is exercising, or has a right to exercise, the powers of the other …
It has been said that the act of August 7, 1789, acknowledges a concurrent power in the States to regulate the conduct of pilots, and hence is inferred an admission of their concurrent right with Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and amongst the States. But this inference is not, we think, justified by the fact.
Although Congress cannot enable a State to legislate, Congress may adopt the provisions of a State on any subject. When the government of the Union was brought into existence, it found a system for the regulation of its pilots in full force in every State. The act which has been mentioned adopts this system, and gives it the same validity as if its provisions had been specially made by Congress. But the act, it may be said, is prospective also, and the adoption of laws to be made in future presupposes the right in the maker to legislate on the subject.
The act unquestionably manifests an intention to leave this subject entirely to the States until Congress should think proper to interpose, but the very enactment of such a law indicates an opinion that it was necessary, that the existing system would not be applicable to the new state of things unless expressly applied to it by Congress. But this section is confined to pilots within the “bays, inlets, rivers, harbours, and ports of the United States,” which are, of course, in whole or in part, also within the limits of some particular state. The acknowledged power of a State to regulate its police, its domestic trade, and to govern its own citizens may enable it to legislate on this subject to a considerable extent, and the adoption of its system by Congress, and the application of it to the whole subject of commerce, does not seem to the Court to imply a right in the States so to apply it of their own authority. But the adoption of the State system being temporary, being only “until further legislative provision shall be made by Congress,” shows conclusively an opinion that Congress could control the whole subject, and might adopt the system of the States or provide one of its own …
Since, however, in exercising the power of regulating their own purely internal affairs, whether of trading or police, the States may sometimes enact laws the validity of which depends on their interfering with, and being contrary to, an act of Congress passed in pursuance of the Constitution, the Court will enter upon the inquiry whether the laws of New York, as expounded by the highest tribunal of that State, have, in their application to this case, come into collision with an act of Congress and deprived a citizen of a right to which that act entitles him. Should this collision exist, it will be immaterial whether those laws were passed in virtue of a concurrent power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States” or in virtue of a power to regulate their domestic trade and police. In one case and the other, the acts of New York must yield to the law of Congress, and the decision sustaining the privilege they confer against a right given by a law of the Union must be erroneous.
This opinion has been frequently expressed in this Court, and is founded as well on the nature of the government as on the words of the Constitution. In argument, however, it has been contended that, if a law passed by a State, in the exercise of its acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by Congress in pursuance of the Constitution, they affect the subject and each other like equal opposing powers.
But 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 produced by the declaration that the Constitution is the supreme law …
If, as our whole course of legislation on this subject shows, the power of Congress has been universally understood in America to comprehend navigation, it is a very persuasive, if not a conclusive, argument to prove that the construction is correct, and if it be correct, no clear distinction is perceived between the power to regulate vessels employed in transporting men for hire and property for hire …
If the power reside in Congress, as a portion of the general grant to regulate commerce, then acts applying that power to vessels generally must be construed as comprehending all vessels. If none appear to be excluded by the language of the act, none can be excluded by construction. Vessels have always been employed to a greater or less extent in the transportation of passengers, and have never been supposed to be, on that account, withdrawn from the control or protection of Congress …
This act authorizes a steamboat employed, or intended to be employed, only in a river or bay of the United States, owned wholly or in part by an alien, resident within the United States, to be enrolled and licensed as if the same belonged to a citizen of the United States.
This act demonstrates the opinion of Congress that steamboats may be enrolled and licensed, in common with vessels using sails. They are, of course, entitled to the same privileges, and can no more be restrained from navigating waters and entering ports which are free to such vessels than if they were wafted on their voyage by the winds, instead of being propelled by the agency of fire. The one element may be as legitimately used as the other for every commercial purpose authorized by the laws of the Union, and the act of a State inhibiting the use of either to any vessel having a license under the act of Congress comes, we think, in direct collision with that act …
United States v. E.C. Knight Co. (1895)
156 U.S. 1 (1895)
Decision: Affirmed
Vote: 8-1
Majority: Fuller, joined by Field, Gray, Brewer, Brown, Shiras, Jackson, and White
Dissent: Harlan
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
By the purchase of the stock of the four Philadelphia refineries with shares of its own stock the American Sugar Refining Company acquired nearly complete control of the manufacture of refined sugar within the United States. The bill charged that the contracts under which these purchases were made constituted combinations in restraint of trade, and that in entering into them, the defendants combined and conspired to restrain the trade and commerce in refined sugar among the several states and with foreign nations, contrary to the Act of Congress of July 2, 1890.
The relief sought was the cancellation of the agreements under which the stock was transferred, the redelivery of the stock to the parties respectively, and an injunction against the further performance of the agreements and further violations of the act. As usual, there was a prayer for general relief … And as to the injunction asked, that relief was ancillary to and in aid of the primary equity, or ground of suit … That ground here was the existence of contracts to monopolize interstate or international trade or commerce, and to restrain such trade or commerce which, by the provisions of the act, could be rescinded, or operations thereunder arrested …
In the view which we take of the case, we need not discuss whether, because the tentacles which drew the outlying refineries into the dominant corporation were separately put out, therefore there was no combination to monopolize; or because, according to political economists, aggregations of capital may reduce prices, therefore the objection to concentration of power is relieved, or, because others were theoretically left free to go into the business of refining sugar, and the original stockholders of the Philadelphia refineries, after becoming stockholders of the American Company, might go into competition with themselves, or, parting with that stock, might set up again for themselves, therefore no objectionable restraint was imposed.
The fundamental question is whether, conceding that the existence of a monopoly in manufacture is established by the evidence, that monopoly can be directly suppressed under the act of Congress in the mode attempted by this bill …
It cannot be denied that the power of a state to protect the lives, health, and property of its citizens, and to preserve good order and the public morals, “the power to govern men and things within the limits of its dominion,” is a power originally and always belonging to the states, not surrendered by them to the general government nor directly restrained by the Constitution of the United States and essentially exclusive. The relief of the citizens of each state from the burden of monopoly and the evils resulting from the restraint of trade among such citizens was left with the states to deal with, and this Court has recognized their possession of that power even to the extent of holding that an employment or business carried on by private individuals, when it becomes a matter of such public interest and importance as to create a common charge or burden upon the citizen — in other words, when it becomes a practical monopoly, to which the citizen is compelled to resort, and by means of which a tribute can be exacted from the community — is subject to regulation by state legislative power. On the other hand, the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the several states is also exclusive. The Constitution does not provide that interstate commerce shall be free, but, by the grant of this exclusive power to regulate it, it was left free except as Congress might impose restraints. Therefore it has been determined that the failure of Congress to exercise this exclusive power in any case is an expression of its will that the subject shall be free from restrictions or impositions upon it by the several states, and if a law passed by a state in the exercise of its acknowledged powers comes into conflict with that will, the Congress and the state cannot occupy the position of equal opposing sovereignties, because the Constitution declares its supremacy, and that of the laws passed in pursuance thereof, and that which is not supreme must yield to that which is supreme.
“Commerce undoubtedly is traffic,” said Chief Justice Marshall,
“but it is something more; it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations and parts of nations in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse.”
That which belongs to commerce is within the jurisdiction of the United States, but that which does not belong to commerce is within the jurisdiction of the police power of the state. Gibbons v. Ogden …
The argument is that the power to control the manufacture of refined sugar is a monopoly over a necessary of life, to the enjoyment of which by a large part of the population of the United States interstate commerce is indispensable, and that therefore the general government, in the exercise of the power to regulate commerce, may repress such monopoly directly and set aside the instruments which have created it. But this argument cannot be confined to necessaries of life merely, and must include all articles of general consumption. Doubtless the power to control the manufacture of a given thing involves, in a certain sense, the control of its disposition, but this is a secondary, and not the primary, sense, and although the exercise of that power may result in bringing the operation of commerce into play, it does not control it, and affects it only incidentally and indirectly. Commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a part of it. The power to regulate commerce is the power to prescribe the rule by which commerce shall be governed, and is a power independent of the power to suppress monopoly. But it may operate in repression of monopoly whenever that comes within the rules by which commerce is governed, or whenever the transaction is itself a monopoly of commerce.
It is vital that the independence of the commercial power and of the police power, and the delimitation between them, however sometimes perplexing, should always be recognized and observed, for while the one furnishes the strongest bond of union, the other is essential to the preservation of the autonomy of the states as required by our dual form of government, and acknowledged evils, however grave and urgent they may appear to be, had better be borne, than the risk be run, in the effort to suppress them, of more serious consequences by resort to expedients of even doubtful constitutionality.
It will be perceived how far-reaching the proposition is that the power of dealing with a monopoly directly may be exercised by the general government whenever interstate or international commerce may be ultimately affected. The regulation of commerce applies to the subjects of commerce, and not to matters of internal police. Contracts to buy, sell, or exchange goods to be transported among the several states, the transportation and its instrumentalities, and articles bought, sold, or exchanged for the purposes of such transit among the states or put in the way of transit, may be regulated; but this is because they form part of interstate trade or commerce. The fact that an article is manufactured for export to another state does not, of itself, make it an article of interstate commerce, and the intent of the manufacturer does not determine the time when the article or product passes from the control of the state and belongs to commerce …
And again, in Kidd v. Pearson … And Mr. Justice Lamar remarked:
“No distinction is more popular to the common mind, or more clearly expressed in economic and political literature, than that between manufacture and commerce. Manufacture is transformation — the fashioning of raw materials into a change of form for use. The functions of commerce are different. The buying and selling, and the transportation incidental thereto, constitute commerce, and the regulation of commerce in the constitutional sense embraces the regulation at least of such transportation. … If it be held that the term includes the regulation of all such manufactures as are intended to be the subject of commercial transactions in the future, it is impossible to deny that it would also include all productive industries that contemplate the same thing. The result would be that Congress would be invested, to the exclusion of the states, with the power to regulate not only manufactures, but also agriculture, horticulture, stock raising, domestic fisheries, mining — in short, every branch of human industry. For is there one of them that does not contemplate more or less clearly an interstate or foreign market? … ”
Contracts, combinations, or conspiracies to control domestic enterprise in manufacture, agriculture, mining, production in all its forms, or to raise or lower prices or wages might unquestionably tend to restrain external as well as domestic trade, but the restraint would be an indirect result, however inevitable, and whatever its extent, and such result would not necessarily determine the object of the contract, combination, or conspiracy.
Again, all the authorities agree that, in order to vitiate a contract or combination, it is not essential that its result should be a complete monopoly; it is sufficient if it really tends to that end, and to deprive the public of the advantages which flow from free competition. Slight reflection will show that if the national power extends to all contracts and combinations in … productive industries whose ultimate result may affect external commerce, comparatively little of business operations and affairs would be left for state control.
Again, all the authorities agree that, in order to vitiate a contract or combination, it is not essential that its result should be a complete monopoly; it is sufficient if it really tends to that end, and to deprive the public of the advantages which flow from free competition. Slight reflection will show that if the national power extends to all contracts and combinations in manufacture, agriculture, mining, and other productive industries whose ultimate result may affect external commerce, comparatively little of business operations and affairs would be left for state control.
It was in the light of well settled principles that the Act of July 2, 1890, was framed … Aside from the provisions applicable where Congress might exercise municipal power, what the law struck at was combinations, contracts, and conspiracies to monopolize trade and commerce among the several states or with foreign nations; but the contracts and acts of the defendants related exclusively to the acquisition of the Philadelphia refineries and the business of sugar refining in Pennsylvania, and bore no direct relation to commerce between the states or with foreign nations … Sugar was refined for sale, and sales were probably made at Philadelphia for consumption, and undoubtedly for resale by the first purchasers throughout Pennsylvania and other states, and refined sugar was also for warded by the companies to other states for sale. Nevertheless it does not follow that an attempt to monopolize, or the actual monopoly of, the manufacture was an attempt, whether executory or consummated, to monopolize commerce, even though, in order to dispose of the product, the instrumentality of commerce was necessarily invoked. There was nothing in the proofs to indicate any intention to put a restraint upon trade or commerce … yet the act of Congress only authorized the circuit courts to proceed by way of preventing and restraining violations of the act in respect of contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in restraint of interstate or international trade or commerce.
The circuit court declined, upon the pleadings and proofs, to grant the relief prayed, and dismissed the bill, and we are of opinion that the circuit court of appears did not err in affirming that decree.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
Prior to the 4th day of March, 1892, the American Sugar Refining Company, a corporation organized under a general statute of New Jersey for the purpose of buying, manufacturing, refining, and selling sugar in different parts of the country, had obtained the control of all the sugar refineries in the United States except five, of which four were owned and operated by Pennsylvania corporations — the E. C. Knight Company, the Franklin Sugar Refining Company, Spreckels’ Sugar Refining Company, and the Delaware Sugar House, and the other by the Revere Sugar Refinery of Boston. These five corporations were all in active competition with the American Sugar Refining Company and with each other. The product of the Pennsylvania companies was about thirty-three percent, and that of the Boston company about two percent, of the entire quantity of sugar refined in the United States.
In March, 1892, by means of contracts or arrangements with stockholders of the four Pennsylvania companies, the New Jersey corporation — using for that purpose its own stock — purchased the stock of those companies, and thus obtained absolute control of the entire business of sugar refining in the United States except that done by the Boston company, which is too small in amount to be regarded in this discussion.
“The object,” the court below said, “in purchasing the Philadelphia refineries was to obtain a greater influence or more perfect control over the business of refining and selling sugar in this country.”
This characterization of the object for which this stupendous combination was formed is properly accepted in the opinion of the court as justified by the proof. I need not, therefore, analyze the evidence upon this point. In its consideration of the important constitutional question presented, this Court assumes on the record before us that the result of the transactions disclosed by the pleadings and proof was the creation of a monopoly in the manufacture of a necessary of life. If this combination, so far as its operations necessarily or directly affect interstate commerce, cannot be restrained or suppressed under some power granted to Congress, it will be cause for regret that the patriotic statesmen who framed the Constitution did not foresee the necessity of investing the national government with power to deal with gigantic monopolies holding in their grasp, and injuriously controlling in their own interest, the entire trade among the states in food products that are essential to the comfort of every household in the land.
The Court holds it to be vital in our system of government to recognize and give effect to both the commercial power of the nation and the police powers of the states, to the end that the Union be strengthened, and the autonomy of the states preserved. In this view I entirely concur … But it is equally true that the preservation of the just authority of the general government is essential as well to the safety of the states as to the attainment of the important ends for which that government was ordained by the people of the United States, and the destruction of that authority would be fatal to the peace and wellbeing of the American people. The Constitution, which enumerates the powers committed to the nation for objects of interest to the people of all the states, should not therefore be subjected to an interpretation so rigid, technical, and narrow that those objects cannot be accomplished …
Congress is invested with power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. The power to regulate is the power to prescribe the rule by which the subject regulated is to be governed. It is one that must be exercised whenever necessary throughout the territorial limits of the several states. Cohens v. Virginia. The power to make these regulations “is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.” It is plenary … It may be exercised “whenever the subject exists.” Gibbons v. Ogden …
What is commerce among the states? The decisions of this Court fully answer the question. “Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more; it is intercourse.” It does not embrace the completely interior traffic of the respective states — that which is “carried on between man and man in a state, or between different parts of the same state, and which does not extend to or affect other states” — but it does embrace “every species of commercial intercourse” between the United States and foreign nations and among the states, and therefore it includes such traffic or trade, buying, selling, and interchange of commodities as directly affects or necessarily involves the interests of the people of the United States. “Commerce, as the word is used in the Constitution, is a unit,” and
“cannot stop at the external boundary line of each state, but may be introduced into the interior. … The genius and character of the whole government seem to be that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the states generally.”
These principles were announced in Gibbons v. Ogden …
In the light of these principles, determining as well the scope of the power to regulate commerce among the states as the nature of such commerce, we are to inquire whether the Act of Congress of July 2, 1890, c. 647, entitled “An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies,” 26 Stat. 209, is repugnant to the Constitution …
It would seem to be indisputable that no combination of corporations or individuals can, of right, impose unlawful restraints upon interstate trade, whether upon transportation or upon such interstate intercourse and traffic as precede transportation, any more than it can, of right, impose unreasonable restraints upon the completely internal traffic of a state. The supposition cannot be indulged that this general proposition will be disputed. If it be true that a combination of corporations or individuals may, so far as the power of Congress is concerned, subject interstate trade, in any of its stages, to unlawful restraints, the conclusion is inevitable that the Constitution has failed to accomplish one primary object of the Union, which was to place commerce among the states under the control of the common government of all the people, and thereby relieve or protect it against burdens or restrictions imposed, by whatever authority, for the benefit of particular localities or special interests …
It has been argued that a combination between corporations of different states, or between the stockholders of such corporations, with the object and effect of controlling not simply the manufacture, but the price, of refined sugar throughout the whole of the United States — which is the case now before us — cannot be held to be in restraint of “commerce among the states,” and amenable to national authority, without conceding that the general government has authority to say what shall and what shall not be manufactured in the several states … But the act of 1890 is not of that character. It does not strike at the manufacture simply of articles that are legitimate or recognized subjects of commerce, but at combinations that unduly restrain, because they monopolize, the buying and selling of articles which are to go into interstate commerce …
The power of Congress covers and protects the absolute freedom of such intercourse and trade among the states as may or must succeed manufacture and precede transportation from the place of purchase …
Champion v. Ames (1903)
188 U.S. 321 (1903)
Decision: Affirmed
Vote: 5-4
Majority: Harlan, joined by Brown, White, McKenna, and Holmes
Dissent: Fuller, joined by Brewer, Shiras, and Peckham
The appeal was from an order of the circuit court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a writ of habeas corpus sued out by the appellant Champion, who in his application complained that he was restrained of his liberty by the Marshal of the United States in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.
It appears that the accused was under indictment in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas for a conspiracy under section 5440 of the Revised Statues, providing that
“if two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties to such conspiracy shall be liable to a penalty of not less than one thousand dollars and not more than ten thousand dollars, and to imprisonment not more than two years.”
He was arrested at Chicago under a warrant based upon a complaint in writing, under oath, charging him with conspiring with others … to commit the offense … the object of the arrest was to compel his appearance in the federal court in Texas to answer the indictment against him.
The first section of the act 1895, upon which the indictment was based, is as follows:
“§ 1. That any person who shall cause to be brought within the United States from abroad, for the purpose of disposing of the same, or deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or carried from one state to another in the United States, any paper, certificate, or instrument purporting to be or represent a ticket, chance, share, or interest in or dependent upon the event of a lottery, so-called gift concert, or similar enterprise, offering prizes dependent upon lot or chance, or shall cause any advertisement of such lottery, so-called gift concert, or similar enterprise, offering prizes dependent upon lot or chance, to be brought into the United States, or deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or transferred from one state to another in the same, shall be punishable in [for] the first offense by imprisonment for not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or both, and in the second and after offenses by such imprisonment only.”
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellant insists that the carrying of lottery tickets from one state to another state by an express company engaged in carrying freight and packages from state to state, although such tickets may be contained in a box or package, does not constitute, and cannot by any act of Congress be legally made to constitute, commerce among the states within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution of the United States providing that Congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;” consequently, that Congress cannot make it an offense to cause such tickets to be carried from one state to another …
The questions presented by these opposing contentions are of great moment, and are entitled to receive, as they have received, the most careful consideration.
What is the import of the word “commerce” as used in the Constitution? It is not defined by that instrument. Undoubtedly, the carrying from one state to another by independent carriers of things or commodities that are ordinary subjects of traffic, and which have in themselves a recognized value in money, constitutes interstate commerce. But does not commerce among the several states include something more? Does not the carrying from one state to another, by independent carriers, of lottery tickets that entitle the holder to the payment of a certain amount of money therein specified, also constitute commerce among the states? …
At the present term of the Court, we said that “transportation for others, as an independent business, is commerce, irrespective of the purpose to sell or retain the goods which the owner may entertain with regard to them after they shall have been delivered.” Hanley v. Kansas City Southern Railway, (1903).
The cases cited … sufficiently indicate the grounds upon which this Court has proceeded when determining the meaning and scope of the commerce clause. They show that commerce among the states embraces navigation, intercourse, communication, traffic, the transit of persons, and the transmission of messages by telegraph. They also show that the power to regulate commerce among the several states is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States; that such power is plenary, complete in itself, and may be exerted by Congress to its utmost extent, subject only to such limitations as the Constitution imposes upon the exercise of the powers granted by it, and that, in determining the character of the regulations to be adopted, Congress has a large discretion which is not to be controlled by the courts simply because, in their opinion, such regulations may not be the best or most effective that could be employed …
It was said in argument that lottery tickets are not of any real or substantial value in themselves, and therefore are not subjects of commerce. If that were conceded to be the only legal test as to what are to be deemed subjects of the commerce that may be regulated by Congress, we cannot accept as accurate the broad statement that such tickets are of no value. Upon their face, they showed that the lottery company offered a large capital prize, to be paid to the holder of the ticket winning the prize at the drawing advertised to be held at Asuncion, Paraguay. Money was placed on deposit in different banks in the United States to be applied by the agents representing the lottery company to the prompt payment of prizes. These tickets were the subject of traffic; they could have been sold, and the holder was assured that the company would pay to him the amount of the prize drawn. That the holder might not have been able to enforce his claim in the courts of any country making the drawing of lotteries illegal, and forbidding the circulation of lottery tickets, did not change the fact that the tickets issued by the foreign company represented so much money payable to the person holding them and who might draw the prizes affixed to them. Even if a holder did not draw a prize, the tickets, before the drawing, had a money value in the market among those who chose to sell or buy lottery tickets. In short, a lottery ticket is a subject of traffic, and is so designated in the act of 1895. That fact is not without significance in view of what this Court has said. That act, counsel for the accused well remarks, was intended to supplement the provisions of prior acts excluding lottery tickets from the mails and prohibiting the importation of lottery matter from abroad, and to prohibit the act of causing lottery tickets to be carried, and lottery tickets and lottery advertisements to be transferred from one state to another by any means or method …
We are of opinion that lottery tickets are subjects of traffic, and therefore are subjects of commerce, and the regulation of the carriage of such tickets from state to state, at least by independent carriers, is a regulation of commerce among the several states.
But it is said that the statute in question does not regulate the carrying of lottery tickets from state to state, but by punishing those who cause them to be so carried. Congress in effect prohibits such carrying; that, in respect of the carrying from one state to another of articles or things that are, in fact or according to usage in business, the subjects of commerce, the authority given Congress was not to prohibit, but only to regulate. This view was earnestly pressed at the bar by learned counsel, and must be examined.
It is to be remarked that the Constitution does not define what is to be deemed a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce. In Gibbons v. Ogden, it was said that the power to regulate such commerce is the power to prescribe the rule by which it is to be governed. But this general observation leaves it to be determined, when the question comes before the court, whether Congress, in prescribing a particular rule, has exceeded its power under the Constitution. While our government must be acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers, McCulloch v. Maryland, (1819), the Constitution does not attempt to set forth all the means by which such powers may be carried into execution. It leaves to Congress a large discretion as to the means that may be employed in executing a given power …
In determining whether regulation may not under some circumstances properly take the form or have the effect of prohibition, the nature of the interstate traffic which it was sought by the Act of May 2, 1895, to suppress cannot be overlooked. When enacting that statute, Congress no doubt shared the views upon the subject of lotteries heretofore expressed by this Court …
In legislating upon the subject of the traffic in lottery tickets, as carried on through interstate commerce, Congress only supplemented the action of those states — perhaps all of them — which, for the protection of the public morals, prohibit the drawing of lotteries, as well as the sale or circulation of lottery tickets, within their respective limits. It said, in effect, that it would not permit the declared policy of the states, which sought to protect their people against the mischiefs of the lottery business, to be overthrown or disregarded by the agency of interstate commerce. We should hesitate long before adjudging that an evil of such appalling character, carried on through interstate commerce, cannot be met and crushed by the only power competent to that end. We say competent to that end because Congress alone has the power to occupy, by legislation, the whole field of interstate commerce. What was said by this Court upon a former occasion may well be here repeated:
“The framers of the Constitution never intended that the legislative power of the nation should find itself incapable of disposing of a subject matter specifically committed to its charge.” …
The whole subject is too important, and the questions suggested by its consideration are too difficult of solution, to justify any attempt to lay down a rule for determining in advance the validity of every statute that may be enacted under the commerce clause. We decide nothing more in the present case than that lottery tickets are subjects of traffic among those who choose to sell or buy them; that the carriage of such tickets by independent carriers from one state to another is therefore interstate commerce; that, under its power to regulate commerce among the several states, Congress — subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution upon the exercise of the powers granted — has plenary authority over such commerce, and may prohibit the carriage of such tickets from state to state, and that legislation to that end, and of that character, is not inconsistent with any limitation or restriction imposed upon the exercise of the powers granted to Congress.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
247 U.S. 251 (1918)
Decision: Affirmed
Vote: 5-4
Majority: Day, joined by White, Pitney, Van Devanter, and McReynolds
Dissent: Holmes, joined by McKenna, Brandeis, and Clarke
MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court.
A bill was filed in the United States District Court … by a father in his own behalf and as next friend of his two minor sons, one under the age of fourteen years and the other between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, employees in a cotton mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, to enjoin the enforcement of the act of Congress intended to prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor.
The District Court held the act unconstitutional and entered a decree enjoining its enforcement. This appeal brings the case here …
The attack upon the act rests upon three propositions: first: it is not a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce; second: it contravenes the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution; third: it conflicts with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
The controlling question for decision is: is it within the authority of Congress in regulating commerce among the States to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of manufactured goods, the product of a factory in which, within thirty days prior to their removal therefrom, children under the age of fourteen have been employed or permitted to work …
The power essential to the passage of this act, the Government contends, is found in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States.
In Gibbons v. Ogden, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for this court and defining the extent and nature of the commerce power, said, “It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.” In other words, the power is one to control the means by which commerce is carried on, which is directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving, and thus destroy it as to particular commodities. But it is insisted that adjudged cases in this court establish the doctrine that the power to regulate given to Congress incidentally includes the authority to prohibit the movement of ordinary commodities, and therefore that the subject is not open for discussion. The cases demonstrate the contrary. They rest upon the character of the particular subjects dealt with, and the fact that the scope of governmental authority, state or national, possessed over them is such that the authority to prohibit is as to them but the exertion of the power to regulate …
In each of these instances, the use of interstate transportation was necessary to the accomplishment of harmful results. In other words, although the power over interstate transportation was to regulate, that could only be accomplished by prohibiting the use of the facilities of interstate commerce to effect the evil intended.
This element is wanting in the present case. The thing intended to be accomplished by this statute is the denial of the facilities of interstate commerce to those manufacturers in the States who employ children within the prohibited ages. The act, in its effect, does not regulate transportation among the States, but aims to standardize the ages at which children may be employed in mining and manufacturing within the States … When offered for shipment, and before transportation begins, the labor of their production is over, and the mere fact that they were intended for interstate commerce transportation does not make their production subject to federal control under the commerce power …
Over interstate transportation or its incidents, the regulatory power of Congress is ample, but the production of articles intended for interstate commerce is a matter of local regulation …
This principle has been recognized often in this court … If it were otherwise, all manufacture intended for interstate shipment would be brought under federal control to the practical exclusion of the authority of the States, a result certainly not contemplated by the framers of the Constitution when they vested in Congress the authority to regulate commerce among the States …
It is further contended that the authority of Congress may be exerted to control interstate commerce in the shipment of child-made goods because of the effect of the circulation of such goods in other States where the evil of this class of labor has been recognized by local legislation, and the right to thus employ child labor has been more rigorously restrained than in the State of production. In other words, that the unfair competition thus engendered may be controlled by closing the channels of interstate commerce to manufacturers in those States where the local laws do not meet what Congress deems to be the more just standard of other States.
There is no power vested in Congress to require the States to exercise their police power so as to prevent possible unfair competition. Many causes may cooperate to give one State, by reason of local laws or conditions, an economic advantage over others. The Commerce Clause was not intended to give to Congress a general authority to equalize such conditions. In some of the States, laws have been passed fixing minimum wages for women, in others, the local law regulates the hours of labor of women in various employments. Business done in such States may be at an economic disadvantage when compared with States which have no such regulations; surely, this fact does not give Congress the power to deny transportation in interstate commerce to those who carry on business where the hours of labor and the rate of compensation for women have not been fixed by a standard in use in other States and approved by Congress …
That there should be limitations upon the right to employ children in mines and factories in the interest of their own and the public welfare, all will admit. That such employment is generally deemed to require regulation is shown by the fact that the brief of counsel states that every State in the Union has a law upon the subject, limiting the right to thus employ children …
In interpreting the Constitution, it must never be forgotten that the Nation is made up of States to which are entrusted the powers of local government. And to them and to the people the powers not expressly delegated to the National Government are reserved … The power of the States to regulate their purely internal affairs by such laws as seem wise to the local authority is inherent, and has never been surrendered to the general government …
We have neither authority nor disposition to question the motives of Congress in enacting this legislation. The purposes intended must be attained consistently with constitutional limitations, and not by an invasion of the powers of the States. This court has no more important function than that which devolves upon it the obligation to preserve inviolate the constitutional limitations upon the exercise of authority, federal and state, to the end that each may continue to discharge, harmoniously with the other, the duties entrusted to it by the Constitution.
In our view, the necessary effect of this act is, by means of a prohibition against the movement in interstate commerce of ordinary commercial commodities, to regulate the hours of labor of children in factories and mines within the States, a purely state authority. Thus, the act in a two-fold sense is repugnant to the Constitution. It not only transcends the authority delegated to Congress over commerce, but also exerts a power as to a purely local matter to which the federal authority does not extend. The far-reaching result of upholding the act cannot be more plainly indicated than by pointing out that, if Congress can thus regulate matters entrusted to local authority by prohibition of the movement of commodities in interstate commerce, all freedom of commerce will be at an end, and the power of the States over local matters may be eliminated, and, thus, our system of government be practically destroyed.
For these reasons, we hold that this law exceeds the constitutional authority of Congress. It follows that the decree of the District Court must be
Affirmed.
Stafford v. Wallace (1922)
258 U.S. 495 (1922)
Decision: Affirmed
Vote: 7-1
Majority: Taft, joined by McKenna, Holmes, Van Devanter, Pitney, Brandeis, and Clarke
Dissent: McReynolds
Not Participating: Day
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT … delivered the opinion of the Court.
…
We have framed the statement of the case not for the purpose of deciding the issues of fact mooted between the packers and their accusers before the Federal Trade Commission or the Committees of Agriculture in Congress, but only to enable us to consider and discuss the act whose validity is here in question in the light of the environment in which Congress passed it. It was for Congress to decide from its general information and from such special evidence as was brought before it, the nature of the evils actually present or threatening, and to take such steps by legislation within its power as it deemed proper to remedy them. It is helpful for us in interpreting the effect and scope of the act in order to determine its validity to know the conditions under which Congress acted …
The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 seeks to regulate the business of the packers done in interstate commerce and forbids them … to do any of a number of acts to control prices or establish a monopoly in the business. It constitutes the Secretary of Agriculture a tribunal to hear complaints and make findings thereon, and to order the packers to cease any forbidden practice … Title III concerns the stockyards, and provides for the supervision and control of the facilities furnished therein … A stockyards is defined to be a place conducted for profit as a public market, with pens in which livestock are received and kept for sale or shipment in interstate commerce … Stockyard owners, commission men, and dealers are recognized and defined, and the two latter are required to register. The act requires that all rates and charges for services and facilities in the stockyards and all practices in connection with the livestock passing through the yards shall be just, reasonable, nondiscriminatory, and nondeceptive, and that a schedule of such charges shall be kept open for public inspection, and only be changed after ten days’ notice to the Secretary of Agriculture, who is made a tribunal to inquire as to the justice, reasonableness, and nondiscriminatory or nondeceptive character of every charge and practice, and to order that it cease, if found to offend, with the same provisions for appeal and enforcement in court as in the case of offending packers. The Secretary is given power to make rules and regulations to carry out the provisions … and to prescribe how every packer, stockyard owner, commission man, and dealer shall keep accounts …
The object to be secured by the act is the free and unburdened flow of livestock from the ranges and farms of the West and the Southwest through the great stockyards and slaughtering centers on the borders of that region, and thence in the form of meat products to the consuming cities of the country in the Middle West and East, or, still, as livestock, to the feeding places and fattening farms in the Middle West or East for further preparation for the market.
The chief evil feared is the monopoly of the packers, enabling them unduly and arbitrarily to lower prices to the shipper, who sells, and unduly and arbitrarily to increase the price to the consumer, who buys. Congress thought that the power to maintain this monopoly was aided by control of the stockyards. Another evil which it sought to provide against by the act was exorbitant charges … made possible by collusion between the stockyards management and the commission men, on the one hand, and the packers and dealers, on the other. Expenses incurred in the passage through the stockyards necessarily reduce the price received by the shipper, and increase the price to be paid by the consumer. If they be exorbitant or unreasonable, they are an undue burden on the commerce which the stockyards are intended to facilitate. Any unjust or deceptive practice or combination that unduly and directly enhances them is an unjust obstruction to that commerce. The shipper, whose livestock are being cared for and sold in the stockyards market, is ordinarily not present at the sale, but is far away in the West. He is wholly dependent on the commission men. The packers and their agents and the dealers, who are the buyers, are at the elbow of the commission men, and their relations are constant and close. The control that the packers have had in the stockyards by reason of ownership and constant use, the relation of landlord and tenant between the stockyards owner, on the one hand, and the commission men and the dealers, on the other, the power of assignment of pens and other facilities by that owner to commission men and dealers, all create a situation full of opportunity and temptation, to the prejudice of the absent shipper and owner in the neglect of the livestock, in the mala fides of the sale, in the exorbitant prices obtained, and in the unreasonableness of the charges for services rendered …
The dealers are essential to the sales to the stock farmers and feeders. The sales are not in this aspect merely local transactions. They create a local change of title, it is true, but they do not stop the flow; they merely change the private interests in the subject of the current, not interfering with, but, on the contrary, being indispensable to, its continuity. The origin of the livestock is in the West; its ultimate destination, known to, and intended by, all engaged in the business, is in the Middle West and East, either as meat products or stock for feeding and fattening. This is the definite and well understood course of business. The stockyards and the sales are necessary factors in the middle of this current of commerce.
The act therefore treats the various stockyards of the country as great national public utilities to promote the flow of commerce from the ranges and farms of the West to the consumers in the East … That it is a business within the power of regulation by legislative action needs no discussion. That has been settled since the case of Munn v. Illinois … Nor is there any doubt that in the receipt of livestock by rail and in their delivery by rail the stockyards are an interstate commerce agency … The only question here is whether the business done in the stockyards, between the receipt of the livestock in the yards and the shipment of them therefrom, is a part of interstate commerce or is so associated with it as to bring it within the power of national regulation. A similar question has been before this Court, and had great consideration in Swift v. United States … The judgment in that case gives a clear and comprehensive exposition, which leaves to us in this case little but the obvious application of the principles there declared.
The application of the commerce clause of the Constitution in the Swift case was the result of the natural development of interstate commerce under modern conditions. It was the inevitable recognition of the great central fact that such streams of commerce from one part of the country to another, which are ever flowing, are in their very essence the commerce among the states and with foreign nations, which historically it was one of the chief purposes of the Constitution to bring under national protection and control. This Court declined to defeat this purpose in respect of such a stream and take it out of complete national regulation by a nice and technical inquiry into the noninterstate character of some of its necessary incidents and facilities, when considered alone and without reference to their association with the movement of which they were an essential but subordinate part …
It is clear from this that, if the bill in the Swift case had averred that control of the stockyards and the commission men was one of the means used by the packers to make arbitrary prices in their plan of monopolizing the interstate commerce, the acts of the stockyards owners and commission men would have been regarded as directly affecting interstate commerce, and within the Anti-Trust Act. Congress has found as an evil to be apprehended and to be prevented by the act here in question in the use and control of stockyards and the commission men to promote a packers’ monopoly of interstate commerce. The act finds and imports this injurious direct effect of such agencies upon interstate commerce, just as the intent of the conspiracy charged in the indictment in the Swift case tied together the parts of the scheme there attacked and imported their direct effect upon interstate commerce …
There is nothing in the case to indicate that, if such an agency could be and were used in a conspiracy unduly and constantly to monopolize interstate passenger traffic, it might not be brought within federal restraint.
As already noted, the word “commerce,” when used in the act, is defined to be interstate and foreign commerce. Its provisions are carefully drawn to apply only to those practices and obstructions which, in the judgment of Congress, are likely to affect interstate commerce prejudicially. Thus construed and applied, we think the act clearly within Congressional power, and valid.
Other objections are made to the act and its provisions as violative of other limitations of the Constitution, but the only one seriously pressed was that based on the commerce clause, and we do not deem it necessary to discuss the others.
The orders of the district court refusing the interlocutory injunctions are
Affirmed.