Source: https://openjurist.org/299/us/334
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:16:48+00:00

Document:
KENTUCKY WHIP & COLLAR CO.
This controversy relates to the constitutional validity of the Act of Congress of July 24, 1935, known as the Ashurst-Sumners Act (sections 1—4), 49 Stat. 494 (49 U.S.C.A. §§ 61—64).
Petitioner then brought this suit for a mandatory injunction to compel the transportation. The District Court dismissed the bill and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decree. The District Court declared the act to be invalid so far as it prohibited transportation of convict-made goods into states which proscribed sale or possession, but sustained the provision which required labeling. 12 F.Supp. 37. The Circuit Court of Appeals sustained the act in its entirety. 84 F.(2d) 168. This Court granted certiorari. 299 U.S. 525, 57 S.Ct. 19, 81 L.Ed. —-. October 12, 1936.
The contention is inadmissible that the Act of Congress is invalid merely because the horse collars and harness which petitioner manufactures and sells are useful and harmless articles. The motor vehicles, which are the subject of the transportation prohibited in the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act12 are in themselves useful and proper subjects of commerce, but their transportation by one who knows they have been stolen is 'a gross misuse of interstate commerce' and the Congress may properly punish it 'because of its harmful result and its defeat of the property rights of those whose machines against their will are taken into other jurisdictions.' Brooks v. United States, supra, 267 U.S. 432, at page 439, 45 S.Ct. 345, 346, 69 L.Ed. 699, 37 A.L.R. 1407. Similarly, the object of the Federal Kidnaping Act13 is to aid in the protection of the personal liberty of one who has been unlawfully seized or carried away. Gooch v. United States, supra; compare United States v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281, 41 S.Ct. 133, 65 L.Ed. 270.
By the Wilson Act of August 8, 1890,14 intoxicating liquors transported into any state were subjected upon arrival to the operation of state laws to the same extent as though they had been produced within the state, although still in the original packages. This act was upheld in Re Rahrer, supra. But the statute did not apply until the transportation was completed by actual delivery to the consignee. Rhodes v. Iowa, supra, 170 U.S. 412, at page 426, 18 S.Ct. 664, 42 L.Ed. 1088; Adams Express Co. v. Kentucky, 214 U.S. 218, 222, 29 S.Ct. 633, 53 L.Ed. 972; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. F. W. Cook Brewing Co., supra. As 'the right to receive' was not affected by the Wilson Act, 'such receipt and the possession following from it and the resulting right to use' remained protected by the commerce clause. Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., 242 U.S. 311, 323, 37 S.Ct. 180, 184, 61 L.Ed. 326, L.R.A.1917B, 1218, Ann.Cas.1917B, 845. In this situation the Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act of March 1, 1913,15 which prohibited the transportation of intoxicating liquors into any state when it was intended that they should be 'received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used,' in violation of its laws. The Court upheld the constitutional validity of this act as a regulation of interstate commerce. Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., supra. It was supplemented by the Act of March 3, 1917, known as the Reed Amendment.16 United States v. Hill, 248 U.S. 420, 424, 39 S.Ct. 143, 63 L.Ed. 337.
The course of congressional legislation with respect to convict-made goods has followed closely the precedents as to intoxicating liquors. By the Hawes-Cooper Act of January 19, 1929,17 the Congress provided that convict-made goods (with certain exceptions) transported into any state should be subject upon arrival, whether in the original packages or otherwise, to the operation of state laws as if produced within the state. In Whitfield v. Ohio, 297 U.S. 431, 56 S.Ct. 532, 533, 80 L.Ed. 778, petitioner was charged in the state court in Ohio with selling convict-made goods in violation of the state law. It appeared that the goods had been sold in the original packages as shipped in interstate commerce and that there was 'nothing harmful, injurious, or deleterious' about them. But this Court said that the view of the state of Ohio, that the sale of convict-made goods in competition with the products of free labor was an evil, found ample support in fact and in the similar legislation of a preponderant number of other states. The Court observed that the Congress had prohibited the importation of the products of convict labor.18 All such legislation, state and federal, proceeded upon the view 'that free labor, properly compensated, cannot compete successfully with the enforced and unpaid or underpaid convict labor of the prison.' The Court upheld the power of the state, so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, to base nondiscriminatory legislation upon that conception, and as it appeared that the Ohio statute would be unassailable if made to take effect after sale in the original package, the statute was held to be equally unassailable in the light of the provisions of the Hawes-Cooper Act. As to the validity of the latter act, the Court followed the decision in In re Rahrer, supra, in relation to the Wilson Act.
In the congressional action there is nothing arbitrary or capricious bringing the statute into collision with the requirements of due process of law. The Congress in exercising the power confided to it by the Constitution is as free as the states to recognize the fundamental interests of free labor.19 Nor has the Congress attempted to delegate its authority to the states. The Congress has not sought to exercise a power not granted or to usurp the police powers of the states. It has not acted on any assumption of a power enlarged by virtue of state action. The Congress has exercised its plenary power which is subject to no limitation other than that which is found in the Constitution itself. The Congress has formulated its own policy and established its own rule. The fact that it has adopted its rule in order to aid the enforcement of valid state laws affords no ground for constitutional objection.
See, also, Act of May 25, 1900, 31 Stat. 187 (16 U.S.C.A. § 701, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 391—395 and notes); Rupert v. United States (C.C.A.) 181 F. 87; Act of July 3, 1918, 40 Stat. 755 (16 U.S.C.A. §§ 703 and note, 704 et seq.); Bogle v. White (C.C.A.) 61 F.(2d) 930.

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