The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-05-05
The Original Package Case.

We present this morning the full text of
the opinion of the majority of the Supreme
Court recently delivered IN the Iowa liquor
case. The opinion was obtained directly
from the clerk of the Supreme Court at
Washington and its accuracy can therefore
be guaranteed. A careful study of the
opinion fully confirms the view of it we had
derived from the abstract, namely. that 1t
goes to the extent of declaring thatthe impor-
ter may sell in the original package. land can
not be prevented by State legislation, except
the permission of Congress BIZ first obtained.
Nor, as far as we can discover, is there any,
thing in the opinion which restricts the
right to sell tn any class of importers. To
be sure, near the close Of the opinion, the
court say that the Estate [Iowa] had no pow
or to interfere by seizure, or any other ac-
tlon, in prohibition of importation or sale
by the foreign or nonresident importer"
But we do not think the inference
can be drawn from that that the
State could interfere in case the importation
or sale was by citizen or resident importer
1t seems very clear that the sole purpose of
this remark was to apply the general doctrine
laid down to the particular Tease before the
court, which was that of an importer who
was not resident Of the state. Nowhere
else in the opinion is any distinction
between resident and nonresident i'm
porters even limited at. In Brown VS..
Maryland, the doctrine of which is the
basis OF the view taken in this opinion,
the importer was a resident. and in case of
Pierce VS.. New Hampshire, In which Chief
Justice fancy ruled that the State might for
bid the sale of imported liquors, and which
ruling is distinctly reversed by this opinion,
the importer was resident of New Hamp-
shire and had gone to Massachusetts and
bought liquor and imported it into Ports
mouth. 1t seems obvious that the court clear
ly takes the ground that every importer,
whether he be a resident or nonresident,
citizen Of the State into which
ne imports, or Of some other state, may sell
his goods, whether they be dry goods. as in
the Maryland case, or liquors as in the Iowa
case. whether they come from another State
or from foreign country, in the original
package, in spite of all State legislation to
the contrary, such legislation being un-
constitutional, because it is in effect
an attempt to regulate commerce between the
States. To set up distinction between the
nonresident importer and the resident i'm
porter, and grant to the former privileges
denied the latter would, it seems to us, be in
conflict with that clause of the Constitution
that guarantees that ''the citizens of each
state shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several states"
Theoretically the effect of this decision is
to inyalidate the search and seizure
process of every prohibitory law
so far as liquors imported from
foreign countries or other States while
in the original packages are concerned; to
invalidate the nuisance act when the LIQUORS
kept and sold are such as are described
above in short, to inyalidate all the proyis-
ions of such law so far as they relate to i'm
portation, keeping or sale of imported liquor
by the.importer In the originallpackage. There
is in the opinion, no distinct definition of the
term "original package" but the liquors
in this particular case were in packages that
came from the brewery and the same was
the fact in the Bowman case.