Statement of the Case:

two years previous to filing petition; the place, particularly describing it, where the business of buying and selling liquor is to be conducted; that he is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Iowa; that he is a registered pharmacist and now is, and for the last six months has been lawfully conducting a pharmacy in the township or town wherein he proposes to sell intoxicating liquors under the permit applied for, and as the proprietor of such pharmacy, that he has not been adjudged guilty of violating the law relating to intoxicating liquors within the last two years next preceding his application; and is not the keeper of a hotel, eating-house, saloon, restaurant or place of public amusement; that he is not addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and has not within the last two years next preceding his application been directly or indirectly engaged, employed or interested in the unlawful manufacture, sale or keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors; and that he desires a permit to purchase, keep and sell such liquors for lawful purposes only."

Various sections follow, relating to giving bond; petition as to the good moral character of applicant; hearing on the application; oath upon the issuing of permit; keeping of record; punishment by fine, imprisonment, etc.

By section 20, sections 1524, 1526, and other sections of the Code were, in terms, repealed.

The Code provided for the seizure of intoxicating liquors unlawfully offered for sale, and no question in reference to that arises here, if the law in controversy be valid.

By section 1 of chapter 8 of the Laws of 1884, p. 8, ale, beer, wine, spirituous, vinous and malt liquors are defined to be intoxicating liquors.

Section 1524 of the Code of 1873, p. 279, was as follows: "Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to forbid the sale, by the importer thereof, of foreign intoxicating liquor imported under the authority of the laws of the United States regarding the importation of such liquors and in accordance with such laws: Provided, That the said liquor, at the time of said sale by said importer, remains in the original casks or packages in which it was by him imported, and in quantities

Opinion of the Court.

not less than the quantities in which the laws of the United States require such liquors to be imported, and is sold by him in said original casks or packages and in said quantities only; and nothing contained in this law shall prevent any persons from manufacturing in this State liquors for the purpose of being sold according to the provisions of this chapter, to be used for mechanical, medicinal, culinary or sacramental purposes."

This section is substantially identical with section 2 of chapter 45 of the acts of the fifth general assembly of Iowa, approved January 22, 1855 (Laws Iowa, 1854–1855, p. 58); and it was carried into the revision of 1860 as section 1560 (Revision 1860, Chap. 64, p. 259). It was repealed by section 20 of the act of April 12, 1888, as before stated.

Section 1553 of the Code, as amended by the act of April 5, 1886 (Laws Iowa, 1886, p. 83, c. 66, § 10), forbade any common carrier to bring within the State of Iowa, for any person or persons, or corporation, any intoxicating liquors from any other State or Territory of the United States, without first having been furnished with a certificate, under the seal of the county auditor of the county to which said liquor was to be transported, or was consigned for transportation, certifying that the consignee, or person to whom such liquor was to be transported, conveyed or delivered, was authorized to sell intoxicating liquors in such county. This was held to be in contravention of the federal constitutión, in Bowman v. Chicago & North Western Railway Co., 125 U. S. 465.

Mr. James C. Davis for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. H. Scott Howell and Mr. W. B. Collins for defendant in error.

Mr. John Y. Stone, Attorney General for the State of Iowa, for that State.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

Opinion of the Court.

The power vested in Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes," is the power to prescribe the rule by which that commerce is to be governed, and is a power complete in itself, acknowledging no limitations other than those prescribed in the Constitution. It is co-extensive with the subject on which it acts and cannot be stopped at the external boundary of a State, but must enter its interior and must be capable of authorizing the disposition of those articles which it introduces, so that they may become mingled with the common mass of property within the territory entered. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419.

And while, by virtue of its jurisdiction over persons and property within its limits, a State may provide for the security of the lives, limbs, health and comfort of persons and the protection of property so situated, yet a subject matter which has been confided exclusively to Congress by the Constitution is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the State, unless placed there by congressional action. Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 466; Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489. The power to regulate commerce among the States is a unit, but if particular subjects within its operation do not require the application of a general or uniform system, the States may legislate in regard to them with a view to local needs and circumstances, until Congress otherwise directs; but the power thus exercised by the States is not identical in its extent with the power to regulate commerce among the States. The power to pass laws in respect to internal commerce, inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws and laws in relation to bridges, ferries and highways, belongs to the class of powers pertaining to locality, essential to local intercommunication, to the progress and development of local prosperity and to the protection, the safety and the welfare of society, originally necessarily belonging to, and upon the adoption of the Constitution reserved by, the States, except so far as falling within the scope of a power confided to the general government. Where the sub

Opinion of the Court.

ject matter requires a uniform system as between the States, the power controlling it is vested exclusively in Congress, and cannot be encroached upon by the States; but where, in relation to the subject matter, different rules may be suitable for different localities, the States may exercise powers which, though they may be said to partake of the nature of the power granted to the general government, are strictly not such, but are simply local powers, which have full operation until or unless circumscribed by the action of Congress in effectuation of the general power. Cooley v. Port Wardens of Philadelphia, 12 How. 299.

It was stated in the 32d number of the Federalist that the States might exercise concurrent and independent power in all cases but three: First, where the power was lodged exclusively in the federal constitution; second, where it was given to the United States and prohibited to the States; third, where, from the nature and subjects of the power, it must be necessarily exercised by the national government exclusively. But it is easy to see that Congress may assert an authority under one of the granted powers, which would exclude the exercise by the States upon the same subject of a different but similar power, between which and that pos sessed by the general government no inherent repugnancy existed.

Whenever, however, a particular power of the general government is one which must necessarily be exercised by it, and Congress remains silent, this is not only not a concession that the powers reserved by the States may be exerted as if the specific power had not been elsewhere reposed, but, on the contrary, the only legitimate conclusion is that the general government intended that power should not be affirmatively exercised, and the action of the States cannot be permitted to effect that which would be incompatible with such intention. Hence, inasmuch as interstate commerce, consisting in the transportation, purchase, sale and exchange of commodities, is national in its character, and must be governed by a uniform system, so long as Congress does not pass any law to regulate it, or allowing the States so to do, it thereby indicates its will

Opinion of the Court.

that such commerce shall be free and untrammelled. County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622, 631; Wabash, St. Louis &c. Railway v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557; Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, 493.

That ardent spirits, distilled liquors, ale and beer are subjects of exchange, barter and traffic, like any other commodity in which a right of traffic exists, and are so recognized by the usages of the commercial world, the laws of Congress and the decisions of courts, is not denied. Being thus articles of commerce, can a State, in the absence of legislation on the part of Congress, prohibit their importation from abroad or from a sister State? or when imported prohibit their sale by the importer? If the importation cannot be prohibited without the consent of Congress, when does property imported from abroad, or from a sister State, so become part of the common. mass of property within State as to be subject to its unimpeded control?

In Brown v. Maryland (supra) the act of the state legisla ture drawn in question was held invalid as repugnant to the prohibition of the Constation upon the States to lay any impost or duty upon imports or exports, and to the clause granting the power to regulate commerce; and it was laid down by the great magistrate who presided over this court for more than a third of a century, that the point of time when the prohibition ceases and the power of the State to tax commences, is not the instant when the article enters the country, but when the importer has so acted upon it that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the country, which happens when the original package is no longer such in his hands; that the distinction is obvious between a tax which intercepts the import as an import on its way to become incorporated with the general mass of property, and a tax which finds the article already incorporated with that mass by the act of the importer; that as to the power to regulate commerce, none of the evils which proceeded from the feebleness of the federal government contributed more to the great revolution which introduced the present system, than