Case Name: WABASH, ST. LOUIS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. ILLINOIS
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1886-10-25
Citations: 118 U.S. 557
Docket Number: 
Parties: WABASH, ST. LOUIS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. ILLINOIS.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 118
Pages: 557–596

Head Matter:
WABASH, ST. LOUIS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. ILLINOIS.
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OE THE STATE OE ILLINOIS.
Argued April 14, 15, 1886. —
Decided October 25, 1886.
A statute of Illinois enacts that, if any railroad company shall, within that State, charge or receive for transporting passengers or freight of the same class, the same or a greater sum for any distance than it does for a longer distance, it shall be liable to a penalty for unjust discrimination. The defendant in this case made such discrimination in regard to goods transported over the same road or roads, from Peoria, in Illinois, and from Gilman, in Illinois, to New York; charging more for the same class of goods carried from Gilman than from Peoria, the former being eighty-sis miles nearer to New York than the latter, this difference being in the length of the line within the State of Illinois. Held :
(1.) This court follows the Supreme Court of Illinois in holding that the statute of Illinois must be construed to include a transportation of goods under one contract and by one voyage from the interior of the State of Illinois to New York.
(2.) This court holds further that such a transportation is “commerce among the States,” even as to that part of the voyage which lies within the State of Illinois, whiie it is not denied that there may be a transportation of goods which is begun and ended within its limits, and disconnected with any carriage outside of the State, which is not commerce among the States.
(3.) The latter is subject to regulation by the State, and the statute of Illinois is valid as applied to it. But the former is national in its character, and its regulation is confided to Congress exclusively, by that clause of the Constitution which empowers it to regulate commerce among the States.
(4.) The cases of Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; and Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164, examined m regard to this question, and hold, in view of other cases decided near the same time, not to establish a contrary doctrine.
(5.) Notwithstanding what is there said, this court holds now, and has never consciously held otherwise, that a statute of a State, intended to regulate or to tax or to impose any other restriction upon the transmission of persons or property or telegraphic messages from one State to another, is not within that class of legislation which the States may enact in the absence of legislation by Congress ; and that such statutes are void even as to that part of such transmission which may be within the State.
(6.) It follows that the statute of Illinois, as construed by the Supreme Court of the State, and as applied to the transaction under consideration, is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, and the judgment of that court is reversed.
The case is stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. II. S. Greene, for plaintiff in error,
cited The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 470; Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485; Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia, 12 How. 299; Lemmon v. People, 20 N. Y. 562; License Cases, 5 How. 504; Thames Bank v. Lovell, 18 Conn. 500; Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283; State Freight Case, 15 Wall. 232; Henderson v. New York, 92 U. S. 259; Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U. S. 99; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Pet 540; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 119; Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713; State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 690; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344; Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; Railroad Commissioners v. Yazoo & Missis sippi Valley Railroad, 21 Am, & Eng. Railroad Cas. 6; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Parks, 18 Ill. 460; Ex parte Koehler, 21 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 58; Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196; Carton v. Illinois Central Railroad, 59 Iowa, 148; Hardy v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad, 18 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 432; Kaeiser v. Illinois Central Railroad, 5 McCrary, 496; S. C., 16 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 40; Illinois Central Railroad v. Stone, 18 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 416; Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Railroad Commissioners, 16 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 1.
Mr. George Hunt, Attorney-General of Illinois, for defendant in error,
cited Messenger v. Penn. Railroad Co., 36 N. J. Law, 407; McDuffee v. Railroad Co., 52 N. H. 430; Sandford v. Railroad Co., 24 Penn. St. 378; New Jersey Steam Navigation Co. v. Merchants’ Bank, 6 How. 344; Shelden v. Robinson, 7 N. H. 157; Gray v. Jackson, 51 N. H. 9; Hollister v. Nowlen, 19 Wend. 234; Bennett v. Dutton, 10 N. H. 481; New England Express Co. v. Maine Central Railroad, 57 Maine, 188; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Pickford v. Grand Junction Railway, 10 M. & W. 399; Parker v. Great Western Railway, 11 C. B. 545; Commonwealth v. Duane, 98 Mass: 1; State v. Perry, 5 Jones’ Law, (N. C.) 252; State v. Nixon, 5 Jones’ Law, (N. C.) 257; Murray v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272; Kirkman v. Shawcrass, 6 T. R. 14; Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, 259; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344; State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 284; Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; The James Gray v. The John Fraser, 21 How. 184; Packet Co. v. St. Louis, 100 U. S. 423; Vicksburg v. Tobin, 100 U. S. 430; Packet Co. v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80; Cooley v. Philadelphia, 12 How. 299; Inmam Steamship Co. v. Tinker, 94 U. S. 238; Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U. S. 691; Railroad Co. v. Fuller, 17 Wall. 560; Willson v. Blackbird Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421; Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1; Sturgess v. Crowinshield, 4 Wheat. 122; License Cases, 5 How. 504; Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196; Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; Illinois v. Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway, 104 Ill. 476; Stone v. Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, 62 Mississippi, 607; Hardy v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad, 18 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 432; Stone v. Illinois Central Railroad, 18 Am. & Eng. Railroad Cas. 416; New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102; State v. Railroad Co., 24 West Vir. 783; Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460.
Mr. W. G. Goudy, for plaintiff in error,
cited the following authorities not cited on Mr. Greene's brief: Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U. S. 1; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650; Pickard v. Pullman Southern Car Co., 117 U. S. 34; Railroad Co. v. Fuller, 17 Wall. 560.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Miller
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Illinois. It was argued here at the last term of this court.
The case was tried in the court of original jurisdiction on an agreed statement of facts. This agreement is short, and is here inserted in full:
" For the purposes of the trial of said cause, and to save the making of proof therein, it is hereby agreed on the part of the defendant that the allegations in the first count of the declaration are true, except that part of said count which avers that the same proportionate discrimination was made in the transportation of said property — oil-cake and corn — in the State of Illinois that was made between Peoria' and the city of New York and Grilman and New York city, which averment is not admitted, because defendant claims that it is an inference from the fact that the rates charged in each case of said transporta tion of oil-cake and corn were through rates, but it is admitted that said averment is a proper one."
The first count in the declaration, which is referred to in this memorandum of agreement, charged that the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company had, in violation of a statute of the State of Illinois, b,een guilty of an unjust discrimination in its rates or charges of toll and compensation for the transportation of freight. The specific allegation is that the railroad company charged Elder & McKinney, for transporting twenty six thousand pounds of goods and chattels from Peoria, in the State of Illinois, to New York city, the sum of thirty nine dollars, being at the rate of fifteen cents per hundred pounds for said car-load; and that bn the same day they agreed to carry and transport for Isaac Bailey and F, O. Swannell another car-load of goods and chattels from Gilman, in the State of Illinois, to said city of New York, for which they charged the sum of sixty five dollars, being at the rate of twenty five cents per hundred pounds. And it is alleged that the car-load transported for Elder & McKinney was carried eighty six miles farther in the State of Illinois than the other car-load of the same weight. This freight being of the same class in both instances, and carried over the same road, except as to the difference in the distance, it is obvious that a discrimination against Bailey & Swannell was made in the charges against them as compared with those against Elder & McKinney ; and this is true whether we regard the charge for the whole distance from the terminal points in Illinois to New Yoi'k city or the proportionate charge for the haul within the State of Illinois.
The language of the statute which is supposed to be violated by this transaction is to be found in Ch. 114 Rev. Stat. Illinois, § 126. It is there enacted that if any railroad corporation shall charge, collect, or receive for the transportation of any passenger or freight of any description upon its railroad, for any distance within the State, the same or a greater amount of toll or compensation than is at the same time charged, collected, or received for. the transportation in the same direction of any passenger or like quantity of freight of the same class over a greater distance of the same road, all such discriminating rates, charges, collections, or receipts, whether made directly of by means of rebate, drawback, or other shift or evasion, shall be deemed and taken against any such railroad corporation as prim,a facie evidence of unjust discrimination prohibited by the provisions of this act. The statute further provides a penalty of not over $5000 for that offence, and also that the party aggrieved shall have a right to recover three times the amount of damages sustained, with costs and attorneys' fees.
To this declaration the railroad company demurred. The demurrer was sustained by the lower court in Illinois, and judgment rendered for the defendant. This, however, was reversed by the Supreme Court of that State, and on the case being remanded the demurrer was overruled, and the defendant pleaded, among other things, that the rates of toll charged in the declaration were charged and collected for services rendered under an agreement and undertaking to transport freight from Gilman, in the State of Illinois, to New York city, in the State of New York, and that in such undertaking and agreement the portion of the services rendered or to be rendered within the State of Illinois was not apportioned separate from such entire service; that the action is founded solely upon the supposed authority of an Act of the Legislature of the State of Illinois, approved April 1, 1811; and that said act does not control or affect or relate to undertakings to transport freight from the State of Illinois to the State of New York, which falls within the operation and is wholly controlled by the terms of the third clause of Section 8 of Article I. of the Constitution of the United States, which the defendant sets up and relies upon as a complete defence and protection in said action. This question of whether the statute of Illinois, as applied to the case in hand, is in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as set forth in the plea, was also raised on the trial by a request of the defendant, the railroad company, that the court should hold certain propositions of law on 'the same subject, which propositions are as follows:
" The court holds as law, that as the tolls or rates of com pensation charged and collected by the defendant, in the instance in question, were for transportation service rendered in transporting freight from a point in the State of Illinois to a point in the State of New York, under an entire contract or undertaking to transport such freight the whole distance between such points; that the Act of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, approved May 2d, 1873, entitled ' An Act to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in the rates charged for the transportation qf passengers and freight on railroads in this State, and to punish the same, and prescribe a mode of procedure and rules of evidence in relation thereto, and to repeal an act entitled " An Act to prevent unjust discrimination and extortion in the rates to be charged by the different railroads in the State for the transportation of freight on said roads," approved April 7, 1871,' does not apply to or control such tolls and charges, nor can the defendant be held liable in this action for the penalties prescribed by said act.
" The court further holds as law, that said act in relation to extortion and unjust discrimination cannot apply to transportation service rendered partly'without the State, and consisting of the transportation of freight from within the State of Illinois to the State of New York, and that said act cannot operate beyond the limits of the State of Illinois.
" The court further holds as matter of law, that the transportation in question falls within the proper description of £ commerce among the States,' and as such can only be regulated by the Congress of the United States under the terms of the third clause of Section eight of Article one of the Constitution of the United States."
All of these propositions were denied by the court, and judgment rendered against the defendant, which judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court on appeal.
The matter thus presented; as to the controlling influence of the Constitution of the United States over this legislation of the State of Illinois, raises the question which confers jurisdiction on this court. Although the precise point presented by this case may not have been heretofore decided by this court, the general subject of the power of the State legislatures to regulate taxes, fares, and tolls for passengers and transportation of freight over railroads within their limits has been very much considered recently: — State Freight Tax Case, 15 Wall. 232; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; Peik v. Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164; Stone v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307; Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 204; Pickard v. Pullman, Southern Can Co., 117 U. S. 34:— and the question how far such regulations, made by the States and under State authority, are valid or void, as they may affect the transportation of goods through more than one State, in one voyage, is not entirely new here. The Supreme Court of Illinois, in the case now before us, conceding that each of these contracts was in itself a unit, and that the pay received by the Illinois Railroad Company was the compensation for the entire transportation from the point of departure in the State of Illinois to the city of New York, holds, that while the statute of Illinois is inoperative upon that part of the contract which has reference to the transportation outside of the State, it is binding and effectual as to so much of the transportation as was within the limits of the State of Illinois, • The People v. The Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway, 104 Ill. 476; and, undertaking for itself to apportion the rates charged over the whole route, decides that the contract and the receipt of the money for so much of it as was performed within the State of Illinois violate the statute of the State on that subject.
If the Illinois statute could be construed to apply exclusively to contracts for a carriage which begins and ends within the State, disconnected from a continuous transportation through or into other States, there does not seem to be any difficulty in holding it to be valid. For instance, a contract might be made to carry goods for a certain price from Cairo to Chicago, or from Chicago to Alton. The charges for these might be within the competency of the Illinois Legislature to regulate. The reason for this is that both the charge and the actual transportation in such cases are exclusively confined to the limits of the territory of the State, and is not commerce among the States, or interstate commerce, but is exclusively commerce within the State. So far, therefore, as this class of transportation, as an element of commerce, is affected, by the statute under consideration, it is not subject to the constitutional provision concerning commerce among the States. It has often been held in this court, and there can be no doubt about it, that there is a commerce wholly within the State which is not subject to the constitutional provision, and the distinction between commerce among the States and the other class of commerce between the citizens of a single State, and conducted within its limits exclusively, is one which has been fully recognized in this court, although it may not be always easy, where the lines of these classes approach each other, to. distinguish between the one and the other. The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557; Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485; Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460.
It might admit of question whether the statute of Illinois, now under consideration, was designed by its framers to affect any other class of transportation than that which begins and ends within the limits of the State. The Supreme Court of Illinois having in this case given an interpretation which makes it apply to what we understand to be commerce among the States, although the contract was made within the State of Illinois, and a part of its performance was within the same State, we are bound, in this court, to accept that construction. It becomes, therefore, necessary to inquire whether the charge exacted from the shippers in this case was a charge for interstate transportation, or was susceptible of a division which would allow so much of it to attach to commerce strictly within the State, and so much more to commerce in other States. The transportation, which is the subject-matter of the contract, being the point on which the decision of the case must rest, was it a transportation limited to the State of Illinois, or was it a transportation covering all the lines between Gilman in the one case and Peoria in the other in the State of Illinois, and the city of New York in the State of New York?
The Supreme Court of Illinois does not place its judgment in the present case on the ground, that the transportation and the charge are exclusively State commerce, but, conceding that it may be a case of commerce among the States, or interstate commerce, which Congress would have the right to regulate if it had attempted to do so,- argues that • this statute of Illinois belongs to that class of commercial regulations which may be established by the laws of a State until Congress shall have exercised its power on that subject'; and to this proposition a large part of the argument of the Attorney-General of the State before us is devoted, although he earnestly insists that the statute of Illinois which is the foundation of this action is not a regulation of commerce within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. In support of its view of the subject the Supreme Court of Illinois cites the cases of Munn v. Illinois, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, and Peik v. Northwestern Railway, above referred to. It cannot be denied that the general language of the court in these cases, upon the power of Congress to regulate commerce, may be susceptible of the meaning which the Illinois court places upon it.
In Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 135, the language of this court upon that subject is as follows:
"We come now to consider the effect upon this statute of the power of Congress to regulate commerce. It was very properly said, in the case of the State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 293, that 'it is not everything that affects commerce that amounts to a regulation of it, within the meaning of the Constitution.' The warehouses of these plaintiffs in error are situated and their business carried on exclusively within the limits of the State of Illinois. They are used as instruments by those engaged in State as well as those engaged in interstate commerce, but they are no more necessarily a part of commerce itself than the dray or the cart by which, but for them, grain would be transferred from one railroad station to another. Incidentally they may become connected with interstate commerce, but not necessarily so. Their regulation is a thing of domestic concern, and certainly, until Congress acts in reference to their interstate relations, the State may exercise all tbe powers of government over them, even though in so doing it may indirectly operate upon commerce outside its immediate jurisdiction. We do not say that a case may not arise in which it will be found that a State, under the form of regulating its own affairs, has encroached upon the exclusive domain of Congress in respect to interstate commerce, but we do say that,, upon the facts as they are represented to us in this record, that has not been done."
In the case of The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155, 163, which directly related to railroad transportation, the language is. as follows:
" The objection, that the statute complained of is void, because it amounts to a regulation of commerce among the States, has been sufficiejitly considered in the case of Munn v. Illinois. This road, like the warehouse in that case, is situated within the limits of a single State. Its business is carried on there, and its regulation is a matter of domestic concern. It is employed in State as well as in interstate commerce, and, until Congress acts, the State must be permitted to adopt such rules and regulations as may be necessary for the promotion of the general welfare of the people within its own jurisdiction, even though in doing so those' without may be indirectly affected."
But the strongest language used by this court in these cases is to be found in Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164, 177-8, as follows:
" As to the effect of the statute as a regulation of interstate commerce. The law is confined to State commerce, or such interstate commerce as directly affects the people of Wisconsin. Until Congress acts in reference to the relations of this company to interstate commerce, it is certainly within the power of Wisconsin to regulate its fares, etc., so far as they are of domestic concern. With the people of Wisconsin this company has domestic relations. Incidentally, these may reach beyond the State. But certainly, until Congress undertakes to legislate for those who are without the State, Wisconsin may provide for those within, even though it may indirectly affect those without." '
These extracts show that the question of the right of the State to regulate the rates of fares and tolls on railroads, and how far that right was affected by the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, was presented to the court in those cases. And it must be admitted that, in a general way, the court treated the cases then before it as belonging to that class of regulations of commerce which, like pilotage, bridging navigable rivers, and many others, could be acted upon by the States in the absence of any legislation by Congress on the same subject.
By the slightest attention to the matter it will be readily seen that the circumstances under which a bridge may be authorized across a navigable stream within the limits of a State, for the use of a public highway, and the local rules which shall govern the conduct of the pilots of each of the varying harbors of the coasts of the United States, depend upon principles far more limited in their application and importance than those which should regulate the transportation of persons and property across the half or the whole of the continent, over the territories of half a dozen States, through which they are carried without change of car or breaking bulk.
Of the members of the court who concurred in those opinions, there being two dissentients, but three remain, and the writer of this opinion is one of the three. He is prepared to take his share of the responsibility for the language used in those opinions, including the extracts above presented. He does not feel called upon to say whether those extracts justify the decision of the Illinois court in the present case. It will be seen, from the opinions themselves, and from the arguments of counsel presented in the reports, that the question did not receive any very elaborate consideration, either in the opinions of the court or in the arguments of counsel. And the question how far a charge made for a continuous transportation over several States, which included a State whose laws were in question, may be divided into separate charges for each State, in enforcing the power of the State to regulate the fares of its railroads, was evidently not fully considered. These three cases, with others concerning the same subject, were argued at the same time by able counsel, and in relation to the different laws affecting the subject, of the States of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; the main question in all the cases being the right of the State to establish any limitation upon the power of the railroad companies to fix the price at which they would carry passengers and freight. It was strenuously denied, and very confidently, by all the railroad companies, that any legislative body whatever had a. right to limit the tolls and chai'ges to be made by the carrying companies for transportation. And the great question to be decided, and which was decided, and which was argued in all those cases, was the right of the State within which a railroad company did business to regulate or limit the amount of any of these traffic charges.
The importance of that question overshadowed all others; and the case of Munn v. Illinois was selected by the court as the most appropriate one in which to give its opinion on that subject, because that case presented the question of a private citizen, or unincorporated partnership, engaged in the warehousing business in Chicago, free from any claim of right or contract under an act of incorporation of any State whatever, and free from the question of continuous transportation through several States. And in that case the court was presented with the question, which it decided, whether any one engaged in a public business, in which all the public had a right to require his service, could be regulated by acts of the legislature in the exercise of this public function and. public duty, so far as to limit the amount of charges that should be made for such services.
The railroad companies' set up another defence, apart from denying the general right of the legislature to regulate transportation charges, namely, that in their charters from the States they each had a contract, express or implied, that they might regulate and establish their own fares and rates of transportation. These two questions were of primary importance ; and though it is true that, as incidental or auxiliary to these, the question of the exclusive right of Congress to make such regulations of charges as any legislative power had the right to make, to the exclusion of the States, was presented, it received bat little attention at the bands of the court, and was passed over with the remarks in the opinions of the court which have been .cited.
The case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232, which was decided only four years before these cases, held an act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania void, as being in conflict with the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, which levied a tax upon all freight carried through the State by any railroad company, or into it from any other State, or out of it into any other State, and valid as to all freight the carriage of which was begun and ended within the limits of the State, because the former was a regulation of interstate commerce, and the latter was a commerce solely within the State which it had a right to regulate. And the question now under consideration, whether these statutes were of a class which the legislatures of the States could enact in the absence of any act of Congress on the subject, was considered and decided in the negative.
It is impossible to see any distinction in its effect upon commerce of either class, between a statute which regulates the charges for transportation, and a statute which levies a tax for the benefit of the State upon the same transportation; and, in fact, the judgment of the court in the State Freight Tax Case rested upon the ground that the tax was always added to the cost of transportation, and thus was a tax in effect upon the privilege of carrying the goods through the State. It is also very difficult to believe that the court consciously intended to overrule the first of these cases without any reference to it in the opinion.
At the very next term of the court after the delivery of these opinions, the case of Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485, was decided, in which the same point was considered, in reference to a statute of the State of Louisiana which attempted to regulate the carriage of passengers upon railroads, steamboats, and other public conveyances, and which provided that no regulations of any companies engaged in that business should make any discrimination on account of race or color. This statute by its terms was limited to persons engaged in that class of business within the State,' as is the one now under consideration, and the case presented under the statute was that of a person of color who took passage from- New Orleans for Hermitage, both places being within the limits of the State of Louisiana, and was refused accommodations in the general cabin on account of her color. In regard to this the court declared that, " for the purposes of this case, we must treat the Act of Louisiana of February 23, 1869, as requiring those engaged in interstate commerce to give all persons travelling in that State, upon the public conveyances employed in such business, equal rights and privileges in all parts of the conveyance, without distinction or discrimination on account of race or color. . We have nothing whatever to do with it as a regulation of internal commerce, or as affecting anything else than commerce among the States."
And, speaking in reference to the right of the States in certain classes of interstate commerce to pass laws regulating them, the opinion says:
" The line which separates the poAvers of the States from this exclusive power of Congress is not always distinctly marked, and oftentimes it is not easy to determine on which side a particular case belongs. Judges not unfrequently differ in their reasons for a decision in Avhich they concur. Under such circumstances it Avould be a useless task to undertake to fix an arbitrary rule by which the line must, in all cases, be located. It is far better to leave a matter of such delicacy to be settled in each case upon a vieAv of the particular rights involved. But we think it may safely be said that State legislation which seeks to impose a direct burden upon interstate commerce, or to interfere directly with its freedom, does encroach upon the exclusive poAver of Congress. The statute now under consideration, in our opinion, occupies that position. It does not act upon the business through the local instruments to be employed after coming within the State, but directly upon the business as it comes into the State from without, or goes out from within. While it purports only to control the carrier when engaged within the State, it must necessarily influence his conduct to some extent in the management of his business throughout his entire voyage. . It was to meet just such a case that the commercial clause in the Constitution was adopted. The river Mississippi passes through or along the borders of ten different States, and its tributaries reach many more. The commerce upon these waters is immense, and its regulation clearly a matter of national concern. If-each State was at liberty to regulate the conduct of carriers while within its jurisdiction, the confusion likely to follow could not but be productive of great inconvenience and unnecessary hardship. Each State could provide for its own passengers and regulate the transportation of its own freight, regardless of the interests of others. Nay, more, it could prescribe rules by which the carrier must be governed within the State in respect to passengers and property brought from without. On one side of the river or its tributaries he might be required to observe one set of rules, and on the other, another. Commerce cannot flourish in the midst of such embarrassments."
The applicability of this language to the case now under consideration, of a continuous transportation of goods from New York to Central Illinois, or from the latter to New York, is obvious, and it is not easy to see how any distinction can be made. Whatever may be the instrumentalities by which this transportation from the one point to the other is effected, it is but one voyage, as much so as that of the steamboat on the Mississippi River. It is not the railroads themselves that are regulated by this act of the Illinois Legislature so much as the charge for transportation, and, in language just cited, if each one of the States through whose territories these goods are transported can fix its own rules for prices, for modes of transit, for times and modes of delivery, and all the other incidents of transportation to which the word " regulation " can be applied, it is readily seen that the embarrassments upon interstate transportation, as an element of interstate commerce, might be too oppressive to be submitted to. " It was," in the language of the court cited above, " to meet just such a case that the commerce clause of the Constitution was adopted."
It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the right of con tinuous transportation from one end of the country to the other is essential in modern times to that freedom of commerce from the restraints which the State might choose to impose upon it, that the commerce' clause was intended to secure. This clause, giving to Congress the power to regulate commerce among the States and with foreign nations, as this court has said before, was among the most important of the subjects which prompted the formation of the Constitution. Cook v. Pennsylvania, 97 U. S. 566, 574; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 446. And it would be a very feeble and almost useless provision, but poorly adapted to secure the entire freedom of commerce among the States which was deemed essential to a more perfect union by the framers of the Constitution, if, at every stage of the transportation of goods and chattels through the country, the State within whose limits a part of this transportation must be done could impose regulations concerning the price, compensation, or taxation, or any other restrictive regulation interfering with and seriously embarrassing this commerce.
The argument on this subject can never be better stated than it is by Chief-Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195-6. He there demonstrates that commerce among the States, like commerce with foreign nations, is necessarily a commerce which crosses State lines, and extends into the States, and the power of Congress to regulate it exists wherever that commerce is found. Speaking of navigation as an element of commerce, which it is, only, as a means of transportation, now largely superseded by railroads, he says: " The power of Congress, then, comprehends navigation within the limits of every State in the Hnion, so far as that navigation may be, in any manner, connected with 'commerce with foreign nations, or among the several States, or with the Indian tribes.' It may, of consequence, pass the jurisdictional line of New York and act upon the very waters [the Hudson River] to which the prohibition now under consideration applies," p. 197. So the same power may pass the line of thé State of Illinois and act upon its restriction upon the right of transportation extending over several States, including that one.
In the case of Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, 465, the court held that " a telegraph company occupies the same relation to commerce as a carrier of messages that a railroad company does as a carrier of goods," and that " both companies are instruments of commerce, and their business is commerce itelf." And relying upon the case of The State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232, already referred to, the court said that a tax by the State of Texas upon all messages carried within its borders was forbiden by the commerce clause of the Constitution, as being a tax upon commerce among the States; and observed that "the tax is the same on every message sent, and because it is sent, without regard to the distance carried or the price charged. . . . Clearly, if a fixed tax for every two thousand pounds of freight carried is a tax on the freight, or for every measured ton of a vessel a tax on tonnage, or for every passenger carried á tax on the passenger, or for the sale of goods a tax on the goods, this must be a tax on the messages. As such, so far as it operates on private messages sent out of the State, it is a regulation of foreign and interstate commerce and beyond the power of the State. That is fully established by the cases already cited."
In the case of Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275, 280, it was said: " It will not be denied that that portion of commerce with foi'eign countries and between the States which consists in the transportation and exchange of commodities is of national importance, and admits and requires uniformity of regulation. The very object of investing this power in the general government was to insure this uniformity against discriminating State legislation."
. And in County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 702, the same idea is very clearly stated in the following language: "Commerce with foreign countries and among the States, strictly considered, consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms navigation and the transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities. For the regulation of commerce as thus defined there can be only one system of rules, applicable alike to the whole country; and the authority wfhich can act for the whole country can alone adopt such a system. Action upon it by separate States is not, therefore, permissible. Language affirming the exclusiveness of the grant of power over commerce as thus defined may not be inaccurate, when it would be so if applied to legislation upon subjects which are merely auxiliary to commerce."
In the case of Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvamia, 114 U. S. 196, 204, decided two years ago, the court declared without dissent that, " It needs no argument to show that the commerce with foreign nations and between the States, which consists in the transportation of persons and property between them, is a subject of national character and requires uniformity of regulation," and still later, in the case of Pickard v. Pullman Southern Gar Co., 117 U. S. 34, the whole subject is very fully re-examined ; and a tax of the State of Tennessee upon sleeping-cars of that company, which were used in carrying passengers through the State, and into it and out of it, was held void as a regulation of commerce among the States.
The case of Stone v. The Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307, argued at the same term as the present, while it does not decide the latter, evidently does not support the construction placed by the Supreme Court of Illinois upon the case of Munn v. Lllinois, and the other cases on which the court relies.
We must, therefore, hold that it is not, and never has been, the deliberate opinion of a majority of this court that a statute of a State which attempts to regulate the fares and charges by railroad companies within its limits, for a transportation which constitutes a part of commerce among the States, is a valid law.
Let us see precisely what is the degree of interference with transportation of property or persons from one State to another which this statute proposes. A citizen of New'York has goods which he desires to have transported by the railroad companies from that city to the interior of .the State of Illinois. A continuous line of rail over which a car loaded with these goods can be carried, and is carried habitually, connects the place of shipment with the place of delivery. He undertakes to make a contract with a person engaged in the carrying business at the end of this route from whence the goods are to start, and he is told by the carrier, " I am free to make a fair and reasonable contract for this carriage to the line of the State of Illinois, bnt when the car which carries these goods is to cross the line of that State, pursuing at the same time this continuous track, I am met by a law of Illinois which forbids me to make a free contract concerning this transportation within that State, and subjects me to certain rules by which I am to be governed as to the charges which the same railroad company in Illinois may make, or has made, with reference to other persons and other places of delivery." So that while that carrier might be willing to carry these goods from the city of New York to the city of Peoria at the rate of fifteen cents per hundred pounds, he is not permitted to do so because the Illinois railroad company has already charged at the rate of twenty five cents per hundred pounds for carriage to Gil-man, in Illinois, which is eighty six miles shorter than the distance to Peoria.
So, also, in the present case, the owner of corn, the principal product of the country, desiring to transport it from Peoria, in Illinois, to New York, finds a railroad company -willing to do this at the rate of fifteen cents per hundred pounds for a car-load, but is compelled to pay at the rate of twenty five cents per hundred pounds, because the railroad company has received from a person residing at Gilman twenty five cents per hundred pounds for the transportation of a car-load of the same class of freight over the same line of road from Gilman to New York. This is the result of the statute of Illinois, in its endeavor to prevent unjust discrimination, as construed by the Supreme Court of that State. The effect of it is, that whatever may be the rate of transportation per mile charged by the railroad company from Gilman to. Sheldon, a distance of twenty three miles, in which the loading and the unloading of the freight is the largest expense incurred by the railroad compan)'', the same rate per mile must be charged from Peoria to the city of New York.
The obvious injustice of such a rule as this, which railroad companies are by heavy penalties compelled to conform to, in regard to commerce among the States, when applied to trans portation which includes Illinois in a long line of carriage through several States, shows the value of the constitutional provision which confides the power of regulating interstate commerce to the Congress of the United States, whose enlarged view of the interests of all the States, and of the railroads concerned, better fits it to establish just and equitable rules.
Of the justice or propriety of the principle which lies at the foundation of the Illinois statute it is not the province of this court to speak.' As restricted to a transportation which begins and ends within the limits of the State it may be very just and equitable, and it certainly is the province of the State legislature to determine that question. But when it is attempted to apply to transportation through -an entire series of States a principle of this kind, and each one of the States shall attempt to establish its own rates of transportation, its own methods to prevent discrimination in rates, or to permit it, the deleterious influence upon the freedom of commerce among the States and upon the transit of goods through those States cannot be overestimated. That this species of regulation is one which must be, if established at all, of a general and national character, and cannot be safely and wisely remitted to local rules and local regulations, we think is clear from what has already been said. And if it be a regulation of commerce, as we think we have demonstrated it is, and as the Illinois court concedes it to be, it must be of that national character, and the regulation can only appropriately exist by general rules and principles, which demand that it should be'done by the Congress of the United States under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is therefore jReversed, and the ease remanded to that court for fv/rther proceedings in conformity with this opinion.