The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-05-21
ORIGINAL PACKAGES.
A Discussion in the Senate on
States Rights.
VEST OPPOSES THE BILL
To Give States the Right to Control the Liquor
Traffic : Some Sensible Talk
by Edmunds.

WASHINGTON, May 20.-Stanford intro
duced bill for loans on public lands and
announced that he would hereafter address
then proceeded to consider the original
package BILL and was addressed by Wilson,
of Iowa, in favor of it.
Wilson, of Iowa, who introduced the bill
addressed the Senate in explanation and
advocacy of it. stating it was made neces-
sary by the recent decision of the supreme
court. 1t was in response to a suggestion
contained in that decision that Congress
could permit the exercise of the restrain
ing power OF the state; and it was for the
purpose of giving that permission that the
Dill had been introduced and reported. The
effect would be to leave each state to deter
mine Tor itself what its policy should be in
regard to the traffic in Intoxicating liquors.
AT the present time original package sa-
looms were being organized in his state
1t was to put stop TO such a practice and
recognize in every state the power to regu-
late its own internal policy that the bill
was reported.
Vest said he was not able to agree with
the majority of the committee in reporting
the bill, because it would sweep away the
exclusive jurisdiction of the United States
over Interstate commerce. The supreme
court had decided emphatically that alco-
holc stlmulants were an article of inter
state commerce and the power to regulate
commerce among the states and with for
e1gn nations was an exclusive power vested
in Congress by the constitution. The init
nation that Congress might delegate to the
state that power was contained in a mere
Obiter dietum of that decision He (Vest)
contended 1t could not be done; the supreme
court had decided that the power of Con-
gress over inter state commerce was ex-
elusive. Ii it could be delegated in regard
to one article of merchandise (alcohoD, it
could be delegated to any other article
wheat, corn, rice, oleomargarine, etc. Was
the Senate going to make that new depar-
ture! Was IL, on mere dictum of the
supreme court, to tear down the bar
rlerS of the constitution? The real
question, he said, was whether Con-
gress could delegate the power
vested in it by the constitution to any
state or number Of states. He believed it
could not. To do so would be to DESTROY
the inter state clause of the constitution
and all the purposes for which it was
enacted. So far from having any uniform
1ty, there would be, in that case, diversity
and hostility Missouri would shut out one
article, Kansas another, and so on, until
there would be chaos from one end of the
union to the other.
At 2.o'clock the silver bill came I'D as
unfinished business, but was laid aside in
formally.
Vest continued that if this bill were
passed it would open up opportunities for
successive series of such bills, Just as the
emergencies or opinions of different states
might call for that sort of legislation How
long would it be- he asked. until another
demand was made upon Congress to give
permission to all the states to exclude
something else, tobacco, FOE instance
II NJ 1sHa 4 forv1 e : L.
what was proposed in this bill, or some
thing equivalent, could be done it would be
the law Of the United States for all future
time, (unleSs the constitution We're
amended in that respect) that any person
living in another state or foreign country
could send Intoxicating liquors into any
state and dispose of it there through
agents, and that it should not be competent
for any state authorities to prohibit.
Edmunds remarked upon it as curious
and interesting circumstance that con-
dition of things had been reached, when,
according to the debate, and according to
the Judgment of the supreme court, the
states had no power to deal with the sub
lect, and Congress had no power to deal
with it. The result was there was in
every man in ore state an inherent indi-
vidual personal right to carry into another
state what that state might
consider injurious to its safety.
there to sell it and that Congress had no
power to stop it, and that the states could
not stop it, unless Congress gave them that
power. 1t was only necessary to state
such proposition to show that somewhere
either in the supreme court or Senate,
there was fault in the logic of somebody.
He did not feel embarrassed by the fact
that the supreme court had taken the long
est step ever taken within hundred years
in the republic, towards the Capitalization
OF power somewhere, either in the supreme
court or in Congress. He did not believe
in the Capitalization of power Speaking
of the Importation of intoxicating liquors
into a state, Edmunds claimed that once
they got there, they were whether in the
hands of natives or not subject to state
laws, and that was what the supreme court
would come to within the next twenty
years. After further discussion the bill
went over without action, and the Senate
proceeded to the consideration of the reso-
lutions offered by Cameron respecting the
memory of the late Representative Kelley.
of Pennsylvania. AT the close of the eulo
gies, the Senate, as further mark of re-
spect to the memory of Mr.. Kelley, ad-
journed.