Court Opinion

ID: 9417735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:33:36.520202+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:49.076619
License: Public Domain

The Chief Justice, with whom concurred Mk. Justice White,
dissenting:
Intercourse and trade between the States by means of railroads passing through several States, is a matter national in its character and admitting of uniform regulation. The power of Congress to regulate it is exclusive and under the Constitution it is free and untrammelled except as Congress otherwise provides. This statute in requiring the suspension of interstate commerce for one day in the week amounts to a regulation of that commerce, and is invalid because the power of Congress in that regard is exclusive. But it is said that the act is not a regulation of commerce but a mere regulation of police, and that the so called police power of a State is plenary. The result, however, is the same. When a power of a State and *319a power of the General Government come into collision, the former must give way; and as the freedom of interstate commerce is secured by the Constitution, except as Congress shall limit it, the act is void because in violation of that freedom.
Mb. Justice Brewer did not hear the argument in this case, and took no part in its decision.