St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-09-01
Supreme Court Decision.

Board of Health, at the opening of the
School for Health officers at Montpelier,
that the Supreme Court in decision by
Chief Judge John W. Rowell had sus-
tanned the Board of Health in its appeal
in chancery in Caledonia County Court
against the village of St. Johnsburv.
The case was brought against the village
to prohibit the furnishing and use of
contaminated water from the Passump-
sic river for domestic purposes on the
ground that it endangered the public
health.
1t was commended by the attorneys for
the village, Elisha May and Harry
Blodgett, that no order could be made
by the Board of Health in violation of
the personal liberty of the citizen and
that the Board had no right to punish
those who used the water.
On this point the Supreme Court says:
Gas to personal liberty, our Bill of
Rights declares that government is or
ought to be instituted for the common
benefit, protection and security of the
people, nation, or community, and not
for the particular emolument or advan-
tage of any single man, family, or set of
men who are part only of that COM
munitY. Closely allied to this f1nda-
mental proposition is the further declar-
alton that the people of the state by
their legal representatives have the sole,
inherent, and exclusive right of govern
ing and regulating the internal police of
the state. This right the state did not
surrender when it became member of
the Union, but retains it still; and that
right, to say the least, embraces such
reasonable rules and regulations, estab-
lished directly by legislative enactment,
as will protect the public health and the
public safety. And the state may invest
local or state boards created for admin
istrative purposes with authority in
some proper way to safeguard the public |
health and the public safety The way
in which these results are to be accom- |
plished is within the discretion of the |
state, provided the powers and functions
OF the general government are not there
by infringed, nor any constitutional pro-
vision OF the state nor the United States. |
pecially what personal liberty is as
secured by constitutional provision; and
on this question we refer to Jackson v.
Massachusetts, 1877 U. S. II, 25 Sup.
Ct. 358, 40 L. Ed. 643, which afirms
the legality of compulsory vaccination
tor the prevention of small pox. There
the plaintiff in error insisted that his
liberty was invaded when the common
wealth subjected him to fine and i'm
prisonment for refusing to submit to
vaccination; that the compulsory vacci-
nation law was unreasonable, arbitrary,
and oppressive, and therefore hostile to
the inherent right of every free man to
care for his own health in such way as
to him seemed best; and that the execu-
ton OF such a law was nothing short of
an assault upon his person. But the
court said that the liberty secured by the
Constitution of the United States to
every person within its jurisdiction does
not impart an absolute right in each
person to be at all times and in all cir
wholly free from restraints
to which every person is necessarily SUBJ
lect for the common good; that on any
other basis organized society could not
exist with safety to its members; that
society based Oh the principle that every
man is law unto himself would soon be
confronted with disorder and anarchy,
that real liberty could not exist under
the operation of principle that recog-
nizes the right of each Individual person
to use his own whether in respect of his
person or his property, regardless of the
that f11Inht ha Hnrn 70 oil | I
that the court had more than once
it as a fundamental principle
that persons and property are subject to
all kinds of restraints and burdens in
order to secure the general comfort,
health and prosperity of the state, of the
perfect right OF the Legislature to do
which no question was ever raised, nor
on general principles ever can be raised
as far as natural persons are concerned.
1t is said in Crowley v. Christensen, 1877
U. S. Sc, II Sup. Ct. 10, "a L. Ed. $40,
that the possession and enjoyment of all
rights are subject to such reasonable
conditions as may be deemed BY the
governing authority essential to the
safety, health, peace, good order, and
morals of the community; that even
liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is
1ot unrestrained license to act according
20 ones own will; that it is only freedom
rom restraint, under conditions essen
-ial to the equal enjoyment of the same
right BY Others, and is, therefore, liberty
regulated by law.
And this court said in Lawrence v.
Rutland Railroad Co., 80 Vt. $40, 383,
81 Att. 1901, Is L. R. A. IN. 81 $50,
the right to contract, that 1t :
is not an absolute right, but subject, on
general principles, to such reasonable
restraint as the public good requires;
that 1t is the general right to acquire
property and by necessary implication (
the general right to contract concerning
it, that the Constitution protects but
that the protection does not make those
rights absolute in all respects, for if it
does, what becomes, the court asks, of
the police power, which inheres in every
tree government, and is based on the
maxim that you shall so use your pro-
perty as not to injure the rights of .
others, which is a universal and pervad-
ing obligation, and condition on which
all property is held, the application of
which to particular conditions must nee.
essarily be within the reasonable discre- :
ton of the Legislature; and that when
such discretion is exercised In a given
case by means appropriate and reason.