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Page Number: 60.0

38 

FULTON v. PHILADELPHIA 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

many laws do not threaten “war,” “disturbances,” “commo-
tion,” “riots,” “terrour,” “danger,” or “hurt.”  Blackstone cat-
alogs  numerous  violations  that  do  not  threaten  any  such 
harms, including  “cursing”;46  refusing to pay assessments
for “the repairs of sea banks and sea walls” and the “cleans-
ing of rivers, public streams, ditches and other conduits”;47 
“retaining  a  man’s  hired  servant  before  his  time  is  ex-
pired”;48  an  attorney’s  failure  to  show  up  for  a  trial;49  the 
unauthorized  “solemniz[ing  of  a]  marriage  in  any  other 
place besides a church, or public chapel wherein banns have 
been usually published”;50 “transporting and seducing our
artists  to  settle  abroad”;51  engaging  in  the  conduct  of  “a
common  scold”;52  and  “exercis[ing]  a  trade  in  any  town,
without having previously served as an apprentice for seven 
years.”53 

In contrast to these violations, Blackstone lists “offences 
against the public peace.” 4 Commentaries on the Laws of
England  142–153  (1769).    Those  include:  riotous  assem-
bling of 12 persons or more; unlawful hunting; anonymous 
threats  and  demands;  destruction  of  public  floodgates,
locks, or sluices on a navigable river; public fighting; riots
or  unlawful  assemblies;  “tumultuous”  petitioning;  forcible 
entry or detainer; riding or “going armed” with dangerous 
or unusual weapons; spreading false news to “make discord 
between the king and nobility, or concerning any great man 
of  the  realm”;  spreading  “false  and  pretended”  prophecies 
to disturb the peace; provoking breaches of the peace; and 

—————— 

46 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 59 (1769). 
47 3 id., at 73–74 (1768). 
48 Id., at 141–142.  
49 Id., at 164. 
50 4 id., at 163. 
51 Id., at 160 (emphasis deleted). 
52 Id., at 169 (emphasis deleted). 
53 Id., at 160 (emphasis deleted).