The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1890-05-01
LIQUOR LAWS INVALID.
THE IOWA AND MICHIGAN ACTS DE-
CLARED VOID.
The Supreme Court of the United States
Decides that Intoxicants May Be I'm.
ported, and that They Are Not Liable to
Unusual Taxes.

Decides that Intoxicants Nav Be I'm
ported, and that They Are Not Liable to
Unusual Taxes.
Washington special
The United States Supreme Court on Monday
rendered an opinion adverse to the constitution
atty of State laws in prohibition States provid-
ing for the seizure of liquor brought from other
States. Such laws, 1t is held, are interferences
with interstate commerce. The case in which
the decision was made was that of Leisy against
Hardin brought here on an appeal from the Su-
prem prem COURT p OF Iowa ;helsy a beer manufac-
which was seized in the original pack
ages by Hardin, q State official, as having
been sent there in violation of the Iowa
law. The Supreme Court of Iowa held
that the law under which this official acted was
valid but the Federal Supreme Court TODAY
and Brewer dissented from the opinion of the
majority of the court The opinion cited a
number of cases bearing upon interstate COM
MERGE; among others "the license cases" laws
passed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Rhode Island in reference to the sale of spirit
uous liquors, came under review in the court
and We're sustained although the members of
the count who participated in the decisions did
not concur in any common ground upon which
to rest them, in which Chief Justice Taney
is quoted holding that spirits and
distilled liquors are universally admitted to
be subjects of ownership and property and
therefore subjects of exchange barter and traf-
fic, like any other commodity in which q right
of property exists; that Congress, under its
general power to regulate commerce with for
eign nations may prescribe what merchandise
shall be admitted and what excluded. But in
asmuch as the law of Congress authorized the
importation of ardent spirits, no State has q
right to prohibit their introduction. After re-
ferring to these and other decisions bearing on
State license laws, the Court in it's opinion
to-day says:
These decisions rest upon the undoubted right
of the States of the Union to control their
purely internal affairs, in doing which they
exercise powers not surrendered 10 the National
Government; but whenever the law of the State
amounts essentially to regulation of COM
merce with foreign nations among the States
it does when it inhibits directly indirectly,
the receipt of an imported commodity or its
disposition before it has ceased to become an
article of trade between one State and another,
or another country and this it comes in conflict
with q power which, IN this particular, has been
exclusively vested i'll the General Government
and is therefore void
"The plaintiffs. citizens of Illinois, had the
right to import their beer into Iowa, and had
the right to sell it, by which act alone it be-
came mingled i'll the common mass OF property
within the State. Up to that point of time in
the absence of Congressional permission to do
SO, the State had no power to Interfere by
seizure, or any other action, in prohibition OF
importation and sale by the NONRESIDENT I'M
porter.
articles which Congress recognizes as sub
jects of interstate commerce may be controlled
by state laws amounting to regulations, while
they retain that character; but to concede 10 q
State the power to exclude such articles with
out Congressional permi sSion is TO concede to a
majority of the people of a State represented in
the State Legislature the power to regulate
commercial intercourse between the States"
Justices Gray. Harlan and Brewer, in sum-
ming up the reasons which satisfy them that
the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Iowa
should be affirmed, say: THE power of regu-
lating or prohibiting the manufacture and sale
of Intoxicating liquors belongs as branch of
the police power, to the Legislatures of the sew
eIal States, and be judiciOusly and effect
lively exercised by them alone according to their
views OF public policy and local needs, and con-
not practically, if it constitutionally, be
welded by Congress as part OF national and
uniform system
THE Iowa prohibitory laws were enacted bv
tie Legislature in the exercise of it's undoubted
power to protect it's Inhabitants against the
evils, physical, moral and social attending the
free use OF Intoxicating liquors. They are not
aimed at interstate commerce, and have no
lation to the movement of goods from one State
to another but operate only on Intoxicating
liquors within the limits OF the State They in
clude all such liquors without discrimination,
and do not even mention where they
are made or whence they come. They
affect commerce much more remotely than laws
of State-the validity of which is unquestioned
authorizing the construction of bridges and
dams across navigable waters within it's limits,
which wholly obstruct the course of commerce
and navigation, or than quarantine laws, which
operate directly upon all ships and merchandise
statutes of State restricting or pro-
hibiting the sale of Intoxicating liquors
within it's territory are to be held mop
erative and void as applied to liquors sent
or brought from another State and sold by the
importers in original packages, the consequence
must be that inhabitant of any State may,
under the preteXt of interstate commerce, and
without license or supervision of any public
authority carry or send liquor into and sell in
any or all of the other States, despite any egis-
lation of those States on the subject, and sl-
though his own State should be the only
which had not enacted similar laws"
Nothing short of affirmative and explicit
vince the dissenting justices that it contem-
plated or intended such O result. They quote
from the decision in the license cases in
which the court sustained these views, and
contend that the silence and inaction of Con-
gress upon the subject during the long period
since the license cases appear TO require the
inference that Congress intended that the
law should remain as thereby declared by the
court, rather than to warrant the presum ptiOn
that Congress intended that commerce among
the States should be free from the indirect effect
OF such an exercise of the police power for pub
tic cafety, as was adjudged by that decision to
be within the constitutional authority of the
State.
The court Ialso decided the case of Henry
Lying against the people of the State of Michi-
gan, involving the validity of the Michigan law
taxing beer in the original package manu-
featured in Wisconsin and sold in Michigan
The court denies the power of state to ex-
clude directly Indirectly the subjects
of interstate commerce by the impo-
sition of burdens thereon, or to regulate
such commerce without Congressional per-
mission. The same rule, it is held, which APP
plies to the sugar of Louisiana, the cotton of
South Carolina the wines of Cali 'ornia, and
the tobacco of Maryland and Connecticut APP
plies to all commodities in which a right of
traffic exists, is recognized by the laws of Con-
gress, the decisions of courts and the usages of
the commercial world, and should apply in this
case.
Tho decision Of the State Court of Michigan,
deciding that Lying was liable to tax, is in this
case also reversed. Justices Gray, Harlan and
Brewer dissented from the opinion of the court
on the same grounds stated in the Leisy-Hardin
case.