Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-04-29
A DIVIDED COURT.
Differing Views of the Liquor
Law of Iowa.
q. S. SUPREME COURTS DECISION.

The Prohibition of Importation into the
State Declared Invalid, Three Justices
Dissenting-Senate Worry over the Sill
yer Bill-Our Product of Precious Met
als-Signing of the International Arbi-
tration Treaty-Congression Transac-
lions.
WASHINGTON CITY, April 29-The
United States supreme court, through
Chief Justice Fuller, has rendered an
opinion adverse to the constitutionality of
state laws providing for the seizure of
liquor brought into the state in original
packages. Such laws, the court holds, are
an interference with the interstate COM
merce law. After the liquor becomes the
property of the importer, the state may
under its police powers regulate or pro
hibit sales
Importation is Lawful.
But it has no power in the absence of ex-
press congressional authority, to prohibit
the transportation of the article from an
other state and its delivery to the inn
porter. The case in which the decision
was made was that of Gus Leidy & Co,
plaintiffs in error, VS.. A. j. Hardin. IL
was brought here on appeal from the
supreme court of Iowa, and this court re-
verses the decision of the state court.
Points from the Opinion.
The court says that Intoxicating liquor
is undoubtedly an article of traffic like
any other article in which right of prop
erty exists and comedies that the states
have the undoubted right TO control their
purely internal affairs, in doing
which they exercise powers not surren-
dered to the national government; but
whenever the law of the state amounts es-
sentially to a regulation of commerce
with foreign nations or among the states,
as it does when it inhibits, directly or in
directly, the receipt of an imported com
modify or it's disposition before it has
ceased TO become an article of trade be-
tween one state and another, or another
country and this, it comes in conflict with
power which, in this particular, has been
exclusively vested in the general govern
ment, and is therefore void
Three Justices Dissent.
Justices Gray, Harlan, and Brewer dis
sent. They say that the right to regulate OF
prohibit the sale of Intoxicating liquors be
longs to the states as a branch of their po-
lice powers, and can be judiciously and
effectively exercised by them alone, ac,
cording to their views of public policy and
local needs. The Iowa prohibitory laws
were enacted by the legislature in the
exercise of its undoubted power to protect
its inhabitants against the evils physical
moral and social attending the free use OF
Intoxicating liquors. 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 its
limits, which wholly obstruct the course of
commerce and navigation; or than qparan-
tine laws, which operate directly upon all
ships and merchandise coming into the
ports of the state
Consequences of the Decision.
If the statutes of a state restricting or
prohibiting the sale of Intoxicating liquors
within its territory are TO be held inopera-
tive and void as applied to liquors sent or
brought from another state and sold by
the importers in original packages, the
consequences must be that an inhabitant
of any state may, under the pretense 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 legisla-
ton of those states on the subject, and al
though his own state should be the only
one which had not enacted similar laws
A Michigan Case Decided.
The court also decided the case of Henry
Lying against the people of the state of
Michigan, involving the validity of the
Michigan law taxing beer in the original
packages, manufactured in Wisconsin and
sold in Michigan. The court denies the
power of state 10 exclude directly or in
directly the subjects of interstate com
merce by the imposition of burdens there
on, or to regulate such commerce without
permission.