Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/247/251.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:38:41+00:00

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[247 U.S. 251, 252] Mr. Solicitor General Davis, of Washington, D. C., Mr. W. L. Frierson, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Mr. Robert Szold, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
[247 U.S. 251, 259] Messrs. Morgan J. O'Brien, of New York City, W. M. Hendren and Clement Manly, both of Winston-Salem, N. C., W. P. Bynum, of Greensboro, N. C., and Junius Parker, of New York City, for appellees.
A bill was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina by a father in his own behalf and as next friend of his two minor sons, one under the age of fourteen years and the other between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, employes in a cotton mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, to enjoin the enforcement of the act of Congress intended to prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor. Act Sept. 1, 1916, 39 Stat. 675, c. 432 (Comp. St. 1916, 8819a- 8816f).
The District Court held the act unconstitutional and entered a decree enjoining its enforcement. This appeal brings the case here. The first section of the act is in the margin. 1 [247 U.S. 251, 269] Other sections of the act contain provisions for its enforcement and prescribe penalties for its violation.
In Gibbons v. Ogdon, 9 Wheat. 1, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for this court, and defining the extent and nature of the commerce power, said, 'It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.' In other words, the power is one to control the means by which commerce is carried on, which is [247 U.S. 251, 270] directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving and thus destroying it as to particular commodities. But it is insisted that adjudged cases in this court establish the doctrine that the power to regulate given to Congress incidentally includes the authority to prohibit the movement of ordinary commodities and therefore that the subject is not open for discussion. The cases demonstrate the contrary. They rest upon the character of the particular subjects dealt with and the fact that the scope of governmental authority, state or national, possessed over them is such that the authority to prohibit is as to them but the exertion of the power to regulate.
This element is wanting in the present case. The thing intended to be accomplished by this statute is the denial of the facilities of interstate commerce to those manufacturers in the states who employ children within the prohibited ages. The act in its effect does not regulate [247 U.S. 251, 272] transportation among the states, but aims to standardize the ages at which children may be employed in mining and manufacturing within the states. The goods shipped are of themselves harmless. The act permits them to be freely shipped after thirty days from the time of their removal from the factory. When offered for shipment, and before transportation begins, the labor of their production is over, and the mere fact that they were intended for interstate commerce transportation does not make their production subject to federal control under the commerce power.
Over interstate transportation, or its incidents, the regulatory power of Congress is ample, but the production of articles, intended for interstate commerce, is a matter of local regulation. 'When the commerce begins is determined, not by the character of the commodity, nor by the intention of the owner to transfer it to another state for sale, nor by his preparation of it for transportation, but by its actual delivery to a common carrier for transportation, or the actual commencement of its transfer to another state.' Mr. Justice Jackson in Re Greene (C. C.) 52 Fed. 113. This principle has been recognized often in this court. Coe v. Errol, 116 U.S. 517 , 6 Sup. Ct. 475; Bacon v. Illinois, 227 U.S. 504 , 33 Sup. Ct. 299, and cases cited. If it were otherwise, all manufacture intended for interstate shipment would be brought under federal control to the practical exclusion of the authority of the states, a result certainly not contemplated by the [247 U.S. 251, 273] framers of the Constitution when they vested in Congress the authority to regulate commerce among the States. Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U.S. 1, 21 , 9 S. Sup. Ct. 6.
The grant of power of Congress over the subject of interstate commerce was to enable it to regulate such commerce, and not to give it authority to control the [247 U.S. 251, 274] states in their exercise of the police power over local trade and manufacture.
Police regulations relating to the internal trade and affairs of the states have been uniformly recognized as within such control. 'This,' said this court in United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41, 45, 'has been so frequently declared by this court, results so obviously from the terms of the Constitution, and has been so fully explained and supported on former occasions, that we think it unnecessary to enter again upon the discussion.' See Keller v. United States, 213 U.S. 138, 144 , 145 S., 146, 29 Sup. Ct. 470, 16 Ann. Cas. 1066; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (7th Ed.) p. 11.
A statute must be judged by its natural and reasonable effect. Collins v. New Hampshire, 171 U.S. 30, 33 , 34 S., 18 Sup. Ct. 768. The control by Congress over interstate commerce cannot authorize the exercise of authority not entrusted to it by the Constitution. Pipe Line Case, 234 U.S. 548, 560 , 34 S. Sup. Ct. 956. The maintenance of the authority of the states over matters purely local is as essential to the preservation of our institutions as is the conservation of the supremacy of the federal power in all matters entrusted to the nation by the federal Constitution.
In interpreting the Constitution it must never be forgotten that the nation is made up of states to which are entrusted the powers of local government. And to them and to the people the powers not expressly delegated to the national government are reserved. Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76. The power of the states to regulate their purely internal affairs by such laws as seem wise to the local authority is inherent and has never been surrendered to the general government. [247 U.S. 251, 276] New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 139; Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 63; Kidd v. Pearson, supra. To sustain this statute would not be in our judgment a recognition of the lawful exertion of congressional authority over interstate commerce, but would sanction an invasion by the federal power of the control of a matter purely local in its character, and over which no authority has been delegated to Congress in conferring the power to regulate commerce among the states.
The first step in my argument is to make plain what no one is likely to dispute-that the statute in question is within the power expressly given to Congress if considered only as to its immediate effects and that if invalid it is so only upon some collateral ground. The statute confines itself to prohibiting the carriage of certain goods in interstate or foreign commerce. Congress is given power to regulate such commerce in unqualified terms. It would not be argued today that the power to regulate does not include the power to prohibit. Regulation means the prohibition of something, and when interstate [247 U.S. 251, 278] commerce is the matter to be regulated I cannot doubt that the regulation may prohibit any part of such commerce that Congress sees fit to forbid. At all events it is established by the Lottery Case and others that have followed it that a law is not beyond the regulative power of Congress merely because it prohibits certain transportation out and out. Champion v. Ames, 188 U.S. 321, 355 , 359 S., 23 Sup. Ct. 321, et seq. So I repeat that this statute in its immediate operation is clearly within the Congress's constitutional power.
The manufacture of oleomargarine is as much a matter of State regulation as the manufacture of cotton cloth. Congress levied a tax upon the compound when colored so as to resemble butter that was so great as obviously to prohibit the manufacture and sale. In a very elaborate discussion the present Chief Justice excluded any inquiry into the purpose of an act which apart from that purpose was within the power of Congress. McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27 , 24 Sup. Ct. 769, 1 Ann. Cas. 561. As to foreign commerce see Weber v. Freed, 239 U.S. 325, 329 , 36 S. Sup. Ct. 131, Ann. Cas. 1916C, 317; Brolan v. United States, 236 U.S. 216, 217 , 35 S. Sup. Ct. 285; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470 , 24 Sup. Ct. 349. Fifty years ago a tax on state banks, the obvious purpose and actual effect of which was to drive them, or at least [247 U.S. 251, 279] their circulation, out of existence, was sustained, although the result was one that Congress had no constitutional power to require. The Court made short work of the argument as to the purpose of the Act. 'The Judicial cannot prescribe to the Legislative Departments of the Government l mitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged powers.' Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533. So it well might have been argued that the corporation tax was intended under the guise of a revenue measure to secure a control not otherwise belonging to Congress, but the tax was sustained, and the objection so far as noticed was disposed of by citing McCray v. United States; Flint .v Stone Tracy Co., 220 U.S. 107 , 31 Sup. Ct. 342, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 1312. And to come to cases upon interstate commerce notwithstanding United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1 , 15 Sup. Ct. 249, the Sherman Act (Act July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209) has been made an instrument for the breaking up of combinations in restraint of trade and monopolies, using the power to regulate commerce as a foothold, but not proceeding because that commerce was the end actually in mind. The objection that the control of the States over production was interfered with was urged again and again but always in vain. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 68 , 69 S., 31 Sup. Ct. 502, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 834, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 734; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U.S. 106, 184 , 31 S. Sup. Ct. 632; Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308, 321 , 322 S., 33 Sup. Ct. 281, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 906, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 905. See finally and especially Seven Cases of Eckman's Alterative v. United States, 239 U.S. 510, 514 , 515 S., 36 Sup. Ct. 190, L. R. A. 1916D, 164.
The Pure Food and Drug Act which was sustained in Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U.S. 45, 57 , 31 S. Sup. Ct. 364, 367 (55 L. Ed. 364), with the intimation that 'no trade can be carried on between the States to which it [the power of Congress to regulate commerce] does not extend,' applies not merely to articles that the changing opinions of the time condemn as intrinsically harmful but to others innocent in themselves, simply on the ground that the order for them was induced by a preliminary fraud. Weeks v. United States, 245 U.S. 618 , 38 Sup. Ct. 219, 62 L. Ed . --. It does not matter whether the supposed [247 U.S. 251, 280] evil precedes or follows the transportation. It is enough that in the opinion of Congress the transportation encourages the evil. I may add that in the cases on the so-called White Slave Act it was established that the means adopted by Congress as convenient to the exercise of its power might have the character af police regulations. Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308, 323 , 33 S. Sup. Ct. 281, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 906, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 905; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 492 , 37 S. Sup. Ct. 192, L. R. A. 1917F, 502, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 1168. In Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U.S. 311, 328 , 37 S. Sup. Ct. 180, L. R. A. 1917B, 1218, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 845, Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 100, 108 , 10 S. Sup. Ct. 681, is quoted with seeming approval to the effect that 'a subject matter which has been confided exclusively to Congress by the Constitution is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the State unless placed there by congressional action.' I see no reason for that proposition not applying here.
The notion that prohibition is any less prohibition when applied to things now thought evil I do not understand. But if there is any matter upon which civilized countries have agreed-far more unanimously than they have with regard to intoxicants and some other matters over which this country is now emotionally aroused-it is the evil of premature and excessive child labor. I should have thought that if we were to introduce our own moral conceptions where is my opinion they do not belong, this was preeminently a case for upholding the exercise of all its powers by the United States.
But I had thought that the propriety of the exercise of a power admitted to exist in some cases was for the consideration of Congress alone and that this Court always had disavowed the right to intrude its udgment upon questions of policy or morals. It is not for this Court to pronounce when prohibition is necessary to regulation if it ever may be necessary-to say that it is permissible as against strong drink but not as against the product of ruined lives. [247 U.S. 251, 281] The Act does not meddle with anything belonging to the States. They may regulate their internal affairs and their domestic commerce as they like. But when they seek to send their products across the State line they are no longer within their rights. If there were no Constitution and no Congress their power to cross the line would depend upon their neighbors. Under the Constitution such commerce belongs not to the States but to Congress to regulate. It may carry out its views of public policy whatever indirect effect they may have upon the activities of the States. Instead of being encountered by a prohibitive tariff at her boundaries the State encounters the public policy of the United States which it is for Congress to express. The public policy of the United States is shaped with a view to the benefit of the nation as a whole. If, as has been the case within the memory of men still living, a State should take a different view of the propriety of sustaining a lottery from that which generally prevails, I cannot believe that the fact would require a different decision from that reached in Champion v. Ames. Yet in that case it would be said with quite as much force as in this that Congress was attempting to intermeddle with the State's domestic affairs. The national welfare as understood by Congress may require a different attitude within its sphere from that of some self-seeking State. It seems to me entirely constitutional for Congress to enforce its understanding by all the means at its command.

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