St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-26
UNFOLDING The LAW.
The Supreme Court Sustains
the Original Package
Statutes.
Drawing the Lines Separat-
ing State and National
Authority.
The President and General
Land Commissioner Rule
for Settlers.
Other Washington News Of
the Departments and
Officials.

WASHINGTON, May 25.-The United
States supreme court to-day decided
that the original package law passed by
the last congress was valid and consti-
tutional and that it went into effect IN
all states where prohibitory laws pre-
vailed without re-enactment by the
states of the laws by which they forbade
the sale of intoxicating liquors within
their boundaries, whether imported
from other states or not. Chief Justice
Fuller rendered the opinion OF the court,
and the bench was united in support of
the conclusions at which he arrived,
though Justice Gray announced that
Justices Harlan, Brewer and himself did
not concur in all the reasoning of the
opinion of the court. The case upon
which the decision was rendered was
that of John NJ. Wilkerson, sheriff of
Shawnee county, Kan, appellant, VS..
Charles A. Rahrer, brought here on
appeal from the decision of the circuit
court of the United States for the dis
trict of Kansas, against the state.
Rahrer was an original package agent
at Topeka, and was arrested the day
after the original package law went
into effect. He claimed that the law
was dlltl dlSO IudI III
could not go into operation until the
state had re-enacted its prohibitory law.
The court says the
Power of the State
to impose restraints and burdens upon
persons and property in promotion of
the public health, good order and pros
perity is power always belonging to
the states. not surrendered by them to
%In Il
strained by the constitution of the
United States and essentially exclusive.
The power of congress to regulate COM
merce among the several states when
the subjects are national in their nature,
1t says, is also exclusive. The cOnstitu-
tion does not provide that interstate
commerce shall be free, but by he grant
of this exclusive power to regulate
1t, it was left free except as
congress might undertake to regu-
late it. Therefore it has been deter
mined, 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 state law can be in con-
flict with the will of congress, the state
and congress cannot occupy the position
of equal opposing sovereignties, because
the constitution declares its supremacy
and that of laws passed in pursuance
thereof. That which is not supreme
must yield to that which is supreme.
The court says that Intoxicating liquors
are undoubtedly
Subjects of Commerce
like any other commodity and are so
recognized, but nevertheless has been
often held that laws prohibiting the
manufacture and sale of liquor within
state limits does not necessarily infringe
any constitutional privilege or i'm
munity, this right being vested upon
the acknowledged right of the states to
control their purely internal affairs, and
In so doing they protect the health.
morals and safety of their people by
regulations that do not interfere with
the powers of the general government.
The present case arises upon the theory
of repugnancy between the state law
and the interstate commerce clause of
the constitution, and involves diStinc-
ton between the commercial power and
the police power which, though quite
SlStinguiShable when they do not ap-
proach each other, are sometimes.
like the colors, so nearly
allied as to perpleX the understanding
as the colors do the vision. Continuing,
the court said that the Iowa laws held
to be unconstitutional were enacted in
the exercise of the states police power,
and not at all as regulations of inter-
state commerce, but as it amounted, in
effect, to a regulation of such commerce,
it was held that, so long as congress did
not pass any law to regulate specifically
the traffic between the states ON intoXi-
eating liquors. or act in such way as
to allow state laws to operate upon it,
congress thereby indicated its will that
such commerce should be free and un-
trammeled, and, therefore, that
The Laws of Iowa
we're imperative in so far as they
amounted to regulations of foreign or
Interstate commerce in inhibting the
reception OF such articles within the
state or their sale upon arrival in the
form in which imported. The law of
congress did not use terms of permis-
sion to the state to act, but simply re-
moved an impeachment to the enforce
ment Of the state laws in respect to i'm
ported packages IN their original con-
dltion. created by the absence of a spe-
clhc utterance on its part. 1t impaired
no power TO the state not then pos
sessed, but allowed imported property
TO fall upon arrival within the local
jurisdiction. The liquor arrived in
Kansas prior to the passage of the act
of Congress, but there is no cues
tion presented of the right of the
importer to withdraw the property
from the state, nor is it perceived that
the congressional enactment is given a
retrospective operation by holding it
applicable to transaction occurring
after it took affect. 1t is not a case of
a law enacted in the unauthorized eXer-
rise of power exclusively coniided to
congress, but Of a law which it was
competent for the state to pass, but
which could not operate upon articles
occupying certain situation until the
passage of the act of congress. That
act removes the obstacle and no
adequate ground is preceived for hold
Ing that re-enactment of the state
law was required before it could have
The effect upon imported which it had
always had upon domestic property.
jurisdiction attached, not in virtue of
The laws of congress, but because that
law placed the property where jur-
lsdiction could attach. The decree of
the lower court is therefore reversed.
CHANGING BOUNDARIES.
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