VOL. V.

No. I

When the people of the United States in unity adopted the Constitution, they established for the nation a dual form of governmental agency, consisting of the Federal or national government, and the State or local government, each supreme within its sphere,' the Federal government having the powers delegated to it in the Constitution, and the States having all the powers belonging to sovereignty not given up to the Federal government. As part of the Federal agency of government they established the Supreme Court with powers commensurate with the legislative functions granted to the government. This tribunal is the final interpreter of the Constitution, and of all laws and treaties made by the United States. Its decisions are the supreme law of the land. It has power to review State constitutions and laws as well as acts of Congress.'

Conflict upon questions of police power between the national and State authorities

1 Tennessee vs. Davis, 100 U. S. 257, 263; McCulloch vs. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316; 3 Wall. 713. ? Pom. Constitutional Law, 79.

arise when the State passes a law, or does any act which tends to impair or destroy the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to the individual against State interference. With this class of prohibitions as a basis of inquiry the Federal courts scrutinize acts of State legislatures to determine whether such acts done under claim of police power are properly within its pale.*

Individual liberty, according to a written constitution, is a modern growth. In ancient times the State had authority to do whatever it had power to do; now it has only the powers delegated to it by the people. Then police powers (πolitεĩa) included all internal regulations, as opposed to foreign relations. This broad power must of necessity be limited in a government of powers restricted by constitution, although the United States Courts in some decisions have given it a wide range nearly equal to πολιτεία without the jural power.*

3 Pom. Constitutional Law, 72; Art. VI., Const., Sec. 2.

Myer's Federal Decisions, Vol. I., § 1032.

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97 U. S. 213.

Police power, broadly stated, is that authority which rests in a government to act within constitutional limits, and along constitutional lines for the security of the general comfort, health, and morals of the State. "The foundation of the police power is the right of self-preservation given to each individual"'; it rests on the ground of public necessity,' and operates upon all alike. It is yielded by each member when he enters society for the benefit of all.' Chief Justice Marshall extended police laws beyond the narrow range of health and morals of the community. He said: "They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation which controls everything within the territory of a State not surrendered to the general government—all which can be most advantageously administered by the States themselves. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, etc., are component parts.*

Judge Cooley says: "The police of a State, in a comprehensive sense, embraces its whole system of internal regulation by which the State seeks not only to preserve the public order and to prevent offences against the State, but also to establish for the intercourse of citizens with citizens those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of hist own so far as it is reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others."

1 3 Sawyer 283; 95 U. S. 472.

Police regulations are for the general benefit and do not proceed to the impairing of any right," but every right acknowledged to the individual by the State may be abused by him to the detriment of the State. The State must therefore confer upon the government the power to watch for and prevent such abuse.' In dealing with the police power, therefore, we must view it from the standpoint of the commonwealth protecting itself against the acts of the individual, and from the standpoint of the individual who has been given certain rights by the State and insists that the constitutional guaranties shall not be impaired. In this latter phase of the question the Federal government supervises the action of the States. In the exercise of acts pertaining to police powers there is a point beyond which the State may not go without interfering with the constitutional rights of the individual. Within the proper limit the police power of the State is supreme and not subject to question by the Federal authorities. It is only when the State under claim of police power has gone beyond that power that the Federal courts inquire into the act. Just where the dividing line between a valid exercise of police power and an infringement of individual rights must be drawn, is difficult to determine. It is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of this power than to mark its bounderies, or prescribe limits to its existence.1o

In order to understand more clearly where the line of demarcation is, perhaps it would be well to consider some specific instances in which the Supreme Court has