Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brewer, JJ. subjects of property and of commerce, and yet may be used so as to be injurious or dangerous to the public safety, the public health or the public morals. Common experience has shown that the general and unrestricted use of intoxicating liquors tends to produce idleness, disorder, disease, pauperism and crime. The power of regulating or prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors appropriately belongs, as a branch of the police power, to the legislatures of the several States, and can be judiciously and effectively exercised by them alone, according to their views of public policy and local needs; and cannot practically, if it can constitutionally, be wielded by Congress as part of a national and uniform system. The statutes in question were enacted by the State of Iowa in the exercise of its undoubted power to protect its inhabitants against the evils, physical, moral and social, attending the free use of intoxicating liquors. They are not aimed at interstate commerce; they have no relation to the movement of goods from one State to another, but operate only on intoxicating liquors within the territorial limits of the State; they include all such liquors without discrimination, and do not even mention where they are made or whence they come. They affect commerce much more remotely and indirectly than laws of a State, (the validity of which is unquestioned,) authorizing the erection of bridges and dams across navigable waters within its limits, which wholly obstruct the course of commerce and navigation; or than quarantine laws, which operate directly upon all ships and merchandise coming into the ports of the State. If the statutes of a State, restricting or prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors within its territory, are to be held inoperative and void as applied to liquors sent or brought from another State and sold by the importer in what are called original packages, the consequence must be that an inhabitant of any State may, under the pretext of interstate commerce, and without license or supervision of any public authority, carry or send into, and sell in, any or all of the other States of the Union intoxicating liquors of whatever descrip Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brewer, JJ. tion, in cases or kegs, or even in single bottles or flasks, despite any legislation of those States on the subject, and although his own State should be the only one which had not enacted similar laws. It would require positive and explicit legislation on the part of Congress, to convince us that it contemplated or intended such a result. The decision in the License Cases, 5 How. 504, by which the court, maintaining these views, unanimously adjudged that a general statute of a State, prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors without license from municipal authorities included liquors brought from another State and sold by the importer in the original barrel or package, should be upheld and followed; because it was made upon full argument and great consideration; because it established a wise and just rule, regarding a most delicate point in our complex system of government, a point always difficult of definition and adjustment, the contact between the paramount commercial power granted to Congress and the inherent police power reserved to the States; because it is in accordance with the usage and practice which have prevailed during the century since the adoption of the Constitution; because it has been accepted and acted on for forty years by Congress, by the state legislatures, by the courts and by the people; and because to hold otherwise would add nothing to the dignity and supremacy of the powers of Congress, while it would cripple, not to say destroy, the whole control of every State over the sale of intoxicating liquors within its borders. The silence and inaction of Congress upon the subject, during the long period since the decision in the License Cases, appear to us to require the inference that Congress intended that the law should remain as thereby declared by this court; rather than to warrant the presumption that Congress intended that commerce among the States should be free from the indirect effect of such an exercise of the police power for the public safety, as had been adjudged by that decision to be within the constitutional authority of the States. For these reasons, we are compelled to dissent from the opinion and judgment of the majority of the court. Statement of the Case. LYNG v. MICHIGAN. 135 161 L-ed 150 136 108 ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN. No. 1219. Submitted March 19, 1890. Decided April 28, 1890. Following Leisy v. Hardin, ante, 100, the judgment of the court below in this case is reversed. Plaintiff in error was prosecuted and convicted in the Circuit Court for Iron County, Michigan, under an information alleging "that on the 19th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, at the village of Iron River, in said Iron County, Henry Lyng, then and there being, was a person whose business consisted in part of selling at wholesale brewed and malt liquors, (not proprietary patent medicine,) as agent for Franz Hagemeister and Henry Hagemeister, copartners doing business in the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, under the firm name of Hagemeister & Son, without he or they having paid in full or in part the tax required by law to be paid upon the business, neither he nor they being druggists selling liquors for chemical, medicinal or sacramental purposes only and in strict compliance with the law." j179 388 135 161 L-ed 130 104 f 268 135 161 L-ed 130 The case went to the Supreme Court of Michigan on exceptions, and the conviction was affirmed, and the case remanded to the Circuit Court with instructions to proceed to judgment. This was done accordingly, and the Supreme Court having affirmed the judgment, the cause was thereupon brought to 34 L-ed 130 this court by writ of error. 135 161 114 f 960 The opinion of the Supreme Court is to be found in 42 135 Northwestern Reporter, 139. 161 34 L-ed 130 s 10 SC 725 627 The trial in the Circuit Court was had upon the following e187 facts agreed: "1. Franz Hagemeister and Henry Hagemeister are citizens of the United States of America, and reside at the city of Green Bay, in the State of Wisconsin, and are engaged in the manufacture of lager beer, under the name of 'Hagemeister VOL. CXXXV-11 Statement of the Case. & Son,' at Green Bay aforesaid, where they have a brewery for the manufacture thereof. "2. Such lager beer is brewed liquor within the meaning of act No. 313 of the laws of Michigan for 1887. "3. Said Hagemeister & Son own a warehouse in the village of Iron River in the township of Iron River, in the county of Iron and State of Michigan, where they store quantities of their lager beer so made by them at Green Bay aforesaid, and from there shipped to their said warehouse in said village of Iron River, to be there stored and disposed of. "4. The defendant, Henry Lyng, is employed by said Hagemeister & Son as their agent, on a regular salary, to look after their said warehouse, to take orders for and deliver said beer, so manufactured and stored, in quantities exceeding three gallons, and to collect and remit the proceeds of the sales thereof to said Hagemeister & Son, and was so employed on the 19th day of July, 1888. "5. On the 19th day of July, 1888, at the village of Iron River, in the county of Iron and State of Michigan, said defendant, in the course of his said employment by Hagemeister & Son, did deliver from said warehouse to Martin Lally, and to divers other persons, all of whom paid him therefor, certain of said lager beer, so made and shipped by Hagemeister & Son from Green Bay aforesaid, in quantities exceeding three gallons. All of said lager beer was so delivered in the original packages in which it had been shipped. The defendant sold no other liquors. "6. Neither the said defendant nor the said Hagemeister & Son, or either of them, have paid any tax in the village of Iron River aforesaid on the business of selling or keeping for sale malt liquors at wholesale or at wholesale and retail, nor given any bond such as is mentioned in act No. 313 of the Public Acts of Michigan for 1887." Sections 1, 2, 4, 7, and 24, of act No. 313 of Public Acts of Michigan, 1887, p. 445, et seq., are as follows: "SECTION 1. The People of the State of Michigan enact, That in all townships, cities and villages of this State there shall be paid annually the following tax upon the business of Statement of the Case. manufacturing, selling or keeping for sale, by all persons whose business, in whole or in part, consists in selling or keeping for sale, or manufacturing, distilled, or brewed or malt liquors or mixed liquors, as follows: Upon the business of selling or offering for sale spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or mixed liquors by retail, or any mixture or compound, excepting proprietary patent, medicines, which in whole or in part consist of spirituous or intoxicating liquors, and any malt, brewed or fermented liquors, five hundred dollars per annum; upon the business of selling only brewed or malt liquors at wholesale or retail, or at wholesale and retail, three hundred dollars per annum; upon the business of selling spirituous or intoxicating liquors at wholesale, five hundred dollars; or at wholesale and retail, eight hundred dollars per annum; upon the business of manufacturing brewed or malt liquors for sale, sixty-five dollars per annum; upon the business of manufacturing for sale spirituous or intoxicating liquors, eight hundred dollars per annum. No person paying a tax on spirituous or intoxicating liquors under this act shall be liable to pay any tax on the sale of malt, brewed or fermented liquors. No person paying a manufacturer's tax on brewed or malt liquors under this act shall be liable to pay a wholesale dealer's tax on the same. "SEC. 2. Retail dealers of spirituous or intoxicating liquors, and brewed, malt and fermented liquors shall be held and deemed to include all persons who sell any of such liquors by the drink, and in quantities of three gallons or less, or one dozen quart bottles or less, at any one time, to any person or persons. Wholesale dealers shall be held and deemed to mean and include all persons who sell or offer for sale such liquors and beverages in quantities of more than three gallons, or more than one dozen quart bottles, at any one time, to any person or persons. No tax imposed under this act shall be required from any person for selling any wine or cider made from fruits grown or gathered in this State, unless such wine or cider be sold by the drink as other beverages are." "SEC. 4. Every person engaged in, or intending to engage in, any business named in section one of this act, and requiring |