Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/213/366/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:43:27+00:00

Document:
The duty of this Court in construing a statute which is reasonably susceptible of two constructions, one of which would render it unconstitutional and the other valid, to adopt that construction which save its constitutionality (Knights Templar Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U. S. 197) includes the duty of avoiding a construction which raises grave and doubtful constitutional questions if the statute can be reasonably construed so as to avoid such questions. Harriman v. Interstate Com. Comm'n, 211 U. S. 407.
As thus construed the commodities clause is a regulation of commerce inherently within the power of Congress to enact. New Haven Railroad v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U. S. 361. The contention that the clause, if applied to preexisting rights, will operate to take property of railroad companies, and therefore violate the due process provision of the Fifth Amendment, having been based upon the assumption that the clause prohibited and restricted in accordance with the construction which the government gave that clause, is not tenable as to the act as now construed, which merely enforces a regulation of commerce by which carriers are compelled to dissociate themselves from the products which they carry, and does not prohibit where the carrier is not associated with the commodity carried.
Knights Templars Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U. S. 197, 187 U. S. 205. And unless this rule be considered as meaning that our duty is to first decide that a statute is unconstitutional, and then proceed to hold that such ruling was unnecessary because the statute is susceptible of a meaning which causes it not to be repugnant to the Constitution, the rule plainly must mean that, where a statute is susceptible of two constructions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise and by the other of which such questions are avoided, our duty is to adopt the latter. Harriman v. Interstate Com Comm'n, 211 U. S. 407.
out of mind, the conclusion just previously stated rests upon what we deem to be the obvious result of the statute as we have interpreted it -- that it merely and unequivocally is confined to a regulation which Congress had the power to adopt and to which all preexisting rights of the railroad companies were subordinated. Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56.
With reference to the contention that the commodities clause is void because of the nature and character of the penalties which it imposes for violations of its provisions, within the ruling in Ex Parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, we think it also suffices to say that, even if the delay which the clause provided should elapse between its enactment and the going into effect of the same does not absolutely exclude the clause from the ruling in Ex Parte Young -- a question which we do not feel called upon to decide -- nevertheless the proposition is without merit because (a) no penalties are sought to be recovered in these cases, and (b) the question of the constitutionality of the clause relating to penalties is wholly separable from the remainder of the clause, and therefore may be left to be determined should an effort to enforce such penalties be made.

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