sale of such goods, or the offer to sell them, before they are brought into the state."

SECTION 73. CRANDALL Vs. Nevada.

In each of the cases already considered, where a state statute was held to be unconstitutional, such decision was based upon its violation of some particular clause of the Constitution. There remains to be considered an important and far reaching case where the unconstitutionality of a law, was placed upon the broader grounds of opposition to the general spirit and meaning of the constitution as a whole.

The principle that a statute, either national or state, might be unconstitutional, even although it was impossible to point out the particular clause or line of the Constitution violated, was recognized as early as the famous decision in McCulloch vs. Maryland. This doctrine was more particularly applied to commercial regulations in the case of Crandall vs. Nevada."

The State of Nevada enacted a law providing that a capitation tax of one dollar should be levied upon every person leaving the state by any railroad or stage coach, such tax to be paid by the officers and agents of the railroad companies and the proprietors of the stage coaches. For a violation of this statute one Wm. H. Crandall was arrested and imprisoned. As a defense Crandall pleaded the unconstitutionality of the law, and the Supreme Court of Nevada upholding the statute, he carried the case to the Supreme Court of the United States by a writ of error. The principle enunciated in this case can best be seen by the following extracts from the decision:

"In the argument of the counsel for the defendant in error, and in the opinion of Supreme Court of

48 6 Wallace.

Nevada, which is found in the record, it is assumed that this question must be decided by an exclusive reference to two provisions of the Constitution, namely; that which forbids any state, without the consent of Congress to lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports; and that which confers on Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.

"The question as thus narrowed is not free from difficulties. *

*

"But we do not concede that the question before us is to be determined by the two clauses of the constitution which we have examined.

"The people of these United States constitute one nation. They have a government in which all of them are deeply interested. This government has necessarily a capital established by law, where its principal operations are conducted. Here sits its legislature, composed of senators and representatives, from the states and from the people of the state. Here resides the President, directing through thousands of agents, the execution of the laws all over this vast country. Here is the seat of the supreme judicial power of the nation, to which all its citizens have a right to resort to claim justice at its hands. Here are the great executive departments, administering the offices of the mails, of the public lands, of the collection and distribution of the public revenues, and of our foreign relations. These are established and conducted under the admitted powers of the Federal Government. That government has a right to call to this point any or all of its citizens to aid in its service, as members of the congress, of the courts, of the executive departments, and to fill all its other offices; and this right

cannot be made to depend upon the pleasure of a state over whose territory they must pass to reach the point where these services must be rendered. The government also has its offices of secondary importance in all other parts of the country. On the sea coasts and on the rivers it has its ports of entry. In the interior it has its land offices, its revenue offices and its subtreasuries. In all these it demands the services of its citizens, and is entitled to bring them to those points from all quarters of the nation, and no power can exist in a state to obstruct this right that would not enable it to defeat the purpose for which the government was established.

"The federal power has a right to declare and prosecute wars and, as a necessary incident, to raise and transport troops through and over the territory of any state of the Union.

"If this right is dependent in any sense, however limited, upon the pleasure of a state, the government itself may be overthrown by an obstruction to its exercises. * * *

"But if the government has these rights on her account, the citizen also has correlative rights. He has the right to come to the seat of government to assert any claim he may have upon that government, or to any business he may have with it. To seek its protection, to share its offices, to engage in administering its functions, he has a right to free access to its seaports, through which all the operation of foreign trade and commerce are conducted, to the sub-treasuries, the land offices, the revenue offices, and the courts of justice in the several states, and this right is in its nature independent of the will of any state over whose soil he must pass in the exercise of it.

"The views here advanced are neither novel nor unsupported by authority. The question of the taxing power of the states, as its exercise, has affected the functions of the Federal Government, has been repeatedly considered by this court, and the right of the states in this mode to impede or embarrass the constitutional operators of that government, or the rights which its citizens hold under it, has been uniformly denied."

Crandall vs. Nevada emphasizes both the general supremacy of the Federal Government, and the wide extent of their power of regulation over commerce. Although the case directly merely denies a certain power to the states, it also by the strongest inference confers additional powers upon the central government. The control of the United States Government as asserted in this case, is a far stronger one than that proclaimed in Gibbons vs. Ogden or Cooley vs. Wardens of the Port. Any power which rests entirely upon a particular clause must of necessity fall short, in the extent of its application, of a power resting upon the spirit and intention of the whole constitution. Such a power, as the latter, can be expanded to keep pace with the expansion of the nation, and can always give authority for whatever degree of federal regulation of commerce the public welfare may seem to demand. SECTION 74. THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

Although Congress had passed an act for the regulation of railroads as early as 1866, it was not until the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, that any real effort was made for an effective regulation of the business of common carriers who were engaged in interstate commerce. The immediate cause of the passage of this act was the decision, in 1886, of the

50

Supreme Court of the United States in Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Co. vs. Illinois, holding that the states had no power to regulate rates within their borders charged by railroads on interstate shipments. This decision not only reversed the decision rendered in the case by the Supreme Court of Illinois, but was also contrary to the early decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the so-called Granger cases, 60 and clearly showed the necessity of Federal legislation on the subject.

The result was the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act which became a law on February 4, 1887. The bill provided for the appointment of a commission to have a general control over the business of all common carriers engaged in interstate commerce, which transport goods either entirely or partially by railroads. Common carriers engaged in interstate commerce, who transport goods entirely by water and independent express companies do not come within the provisions of the act.

The commission has the power to declare the rates charged by railroads unreasonable, and at first they undertook to prescribe rates for the future. This right, however, was soon denied to them by the Supreme Court, with a consequent very great diminution of the efficiency of the commission. The commission for a number of years could not even prescribe a maximum and minimum rate. The most effective provisions of the "Interstate Commerce Act" have been those against discrimination and against pooling by the railroads, but even these have been often avoided and only partially enforced, and the success of the act to date has

50 118 U. S. 557, reversing, 104 Ill.

476. Pike vs. Chicago, etc., R. Co., 94 U. S. 117.

61 The Social Circle Case, 162 U. S. 184; Cincinnati Freight Bureau Case, 176 U. S., 479.