Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-26
ALL OF ONE OPINION.
The Supreme Court Decides the Origi-
nal Package Law Valid.
ITS CONSTITUTIONALITY SOUND.
The Re-Enactment of State Prohibitory Laws
Not Necessary. .s
COMPARISON WITH THE IOWA DECISION


Supreme Court to-day decided that the
| original package law passed by the last Con-
gress was valid and constitutional, and that
| it went into effect in all States where pro-
| hibitory laws prevailed without re-enact-
ment by the States of the laws by which
they forbade the sale of intoxicating liquors
within their boundaries, whether imported
for the States or not. Chief Justice Fuller
rendered the opinion of the Court, and the
bench was united in support of the con-
clusion to which he arrived, though Justice
Gray announced that Justices Harlan,
Brewer and himself did not concur in all the
reasoning of the opinion.
The case upon which the decision was rem
dered was that of John Wilkerson, Sheriff of
Shawnee county, Kan, appellant, versus
Charles A. Raher, on appeal from the decis-
ion of the Circuit Court of the United States
for the district of Kansas, against the State
Raher was the original package agent
at Topeka, Kan, of the firm of Maynard,
Hopkins & Co., of Kansas City, and was ar
rested the day after the original package
law went into effect. He claimed that the
law was unconstitutional, and also that it
could not go into operation until the State
had repealed its prohibitory law.
Decision of the Court.
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 property is power
always belonging to the States,t not sur
rendered by them to the General Govern
ment nor directly restrained by the Consti-
tuition 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 Constitution does not
provide that Interstate commerce shall be
hTIf hx- r1t nf
power to regulate it, it was left free except
as Congress might undertake to regulate it.
Therefore, it has been determined, Kobb1ns
VS. Shelby, taxing district, 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 1t by the several States,
and if State law comes in conflict with the
will of Congress, the State and Congress
can't occupy the position of equal opposing
sovereignties, because the Constitution de-
clares its supremacy and that of the laws
passed in pursuance thereof. That which Is
not supreme must yield to that which is
supreme.
State Rights Upheld.
The court says that intoxicating liquors
are undoubtedly subjects of commerce, like
ony other commodity, and are so recognized;
but nevertheless, 1t has been often held that
laws prohibiting the manufacture and sale
of liquor within State limits do not neces-
sarily infringe any constitutional privilege
or immunity, this right being rested, as in
the Mugler case, upon the acknowledged
right of the States to control their purely in
ternal 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 Constitu-
tion, and involves distinction between the
commercial power and the police power,
which, though quite distinguishable when
they do not approach each other, are some
times like the colors, so nearly allied as to
perplex the understanding as the colors do
the vision.
Differing From the Iowa Decision.
Continuing, the Court says that the Iowa
laws held to be unconstitutional in the Leisy
original package case were enacted in the
exercise of the States police power and not
at all as regulations of Interstate commerce,
but as it amounted in effect to a regulation
of such commerce 1t was held that SO long as
Congress did not pass any law to regulate
specifically the traffic between the States on
Intoxicating liquors, or act in such a way as
to allow State laws to operate upon it, Con-
gress thereby indicated its will that such
commerce should be free and untTammeled,
and, therefore, that the laws of Iowa were
imperative in so far as they amounted to
regulations of foreign or Interstate COM
merce in prohibiting the reception of such
articles within the State or their sale upon
arrival in the form in which imported.
1t followed as cOrollary that when
Congress acted at all, the result of its action
must be to operate as q restraint upon that
perfect freedom which its silence insured.
Congress has now spoken and declared that
imported liquors shall, upon arrival in a
State, fall within the category of domestic
articles of similar nature.
Continuing, the Court says: "The law of
Congress did not use terms of permission to
the State to act, but simply removed an i'm
pediment to the enforcement of the State
laws in respect to imported packages in
their original condition, created by the alb
sence of a specific utterance on its part.
Rights of the Importer.
It impaired no power to the State not then
possessed, but allowed imported property to
Jurisdiction. The liquor arrived in Kansas
but there is no question presented of the
right of an importer to withdraw the prop
erty from the State, nor Is it perceived that
the Congressional enactment is given a
retrospective operation, by holding it appli-
cable to transaction occurring before it
enacted in the unauthorized exercise of a
power exclusively confided to Congress, but
of q law which 1t 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 ad-
equate ground is perceiysd for holding that
q re-enactment of the State law was required
before it could have the effect upon i'm
ported property which it had always had
upon domestic property; not in virtue of the
laws of Congress, but because that law
placed the property where jurisdiction could
attach.