Whatever our individual views may be as to the deleterious or dangerous qualities of particular articles, we cannot hold that any articles which Congress recognizes as subjects of interstate commerce are not such, or that whatever are thus recognized can be controlled by State laws amounting to regulations, while they retain that character; although, at the same time if directly dangerous in themselves, the State may take appropriate measures to guard against injury before it obtains complete jurisdiction over them. To concede to a State the power to exclude, directly or indirectly, articles so situated, without congressional permission, is to concede to a majority of the people of a State, represented in the State legislature, the power to regulate commercial intercourse between the States, by determining what shall be its subjects, when that power was distinctly granted to be exercised by the people of the United States, represented in Congress, and its possession by the latter was considered essential to that more perfect Union which the Constitution was adopted to create. Undoubtedly there is difficulty in drawing the line between. the municipal powers of the one government and the commercial powers of the other, but when that line is determined, in the particular instance, accomodation to it, without serious inconvenience, may readily be found, to use the language of Mr. Justice JOHNSON in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), 9 Wheat. (22 U. S.) 1,238, in "a frank and candid co-operation for the general good." The legislation in question is to the extent indicated, repugnant to the Third Clause of Section Eight, Article One, of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore the judgment of the Supreme Court of Iowa is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

GRAY, J. Mr. Justice HARLAN, Mr. Justice BREWER, and myself are unable to concur in this judgment. As our dissent is based on the previous decisions of this Court, the respect due to our associates, as well as to our predecessors, induces us to state our position, as far as possible, in the words in which the law has been heretofore declared from this bench.

The facts of the case, and the substance of the statutes VOL. XXXVIII.-33.

whose validity is drawn in question, may be briefly stated. It was an action of replevin of sundry kegs and cases of beer, begun in an inferior court of the State of Iowa against a constable of Lee County, in Iowa, who had seized them at Keokuk, in that County, under a search-warrant issued by a Justice of the Peace, pursuant to the statutes of Iowa, which prohibit the sale, the keeping for sale, or the manufacture for sale, of any intoxicating liquor (including malt liquor) for any purpose whatever, except for pharmaceutical, medicinal, chemical, or sacramental purposes, and under an annual license granted by the district court of the proper county, upon being satisfied that the applicant is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Iowa, and a resident of the county, and otherwise qualified.

The plaintiffs were citizens and residents of the State of Illinois, engaged as brewers in manufacturing beer at Peoria, in that State, and in selling it in the States of Illinois and Iowa. The beer in question was manufactured by them at Peoria, and there put up by them in said kegs and cases; each keg being sealed, and having upon it, over the plug at the opening, a United States internal revenue stamp; and each case being substantially made of wood, containing two dozen quart bottles of beer, and sealed with a metallic seal, which had to be broken in order to open the case. The kegs and cases owned by the plaintiffs, and so sealed, were transported by them from Peoria by railway to Keokuk, and there sold and offered for sale by their agent, in a building owned by one of them, and without breaking or opening the kegs or cases.

The Supreme Court of Iowa having given judgment for the defendant, the question presented by this writ of error is whether the statutes of Iowa, as applied to these facts, contravene Section Eight of Article One, or Section Two of Article Four of the Constitution of the United States, or Section One of Article Fourteen of the Amendments to the Constitution. By Section Eight of Article One of the Constitution

"The Congress shall have power," among other things, "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States," and "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution ne foregoing powers."

By Section Two of Article Four

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

By Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

By the Tenth Amendment

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people."

Among the powers thus reserved to the several States, is what is commonly called the "police power,"-that inherent and necessary power, essential to the very existence of civil society, and the safeguard of the inhabitants of the State against disorder, disease, poverty, and crime.

"The police power belonging to the States in virtue of their general sovereignty," said Mr. Justice STORY, delivering the judgment of this Court, "extends over all subjects within the territorial limits of the States, and has never been conceded to the United States." Prigg v. Pennsyl vania (1842), 16 Pet. (41 U. S.) 539, 625.

This is well illustrated by the recent adjudications, that a statute, prohibiting the sale of illuminating oils below a certain fire test, is beyond the constitutional power of Congress to enact, except so far as it has effect within the United States (as, for instance, in the District of Columbia) and without the limits of any State; but that it is within the constitutional power of a State to pass such a statute, even as to oils manufactured under letters patent from the United States: U. S. v. De Witt (1869), 9 Wall. (76 U. S.) 41 ; Patterson v. Kentucky (1878), 97 U. S. 501.

The police power includes all measures for the protection of the life, the health, the property, and the welfare of the inhabitants, and for the promotion of good order and the public morals. It covers the suppression of nuisances, whether injurious to the public health, like unwholesome trades, or to the public morals, like gambling-houses and lottery tickets:

Slaughter-House Cases (1872), 16 Wall. (84 U. S.) 36, 62, 87; Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park (1877), 97 U. S. 659; Phalen v. Virginia (1850), 8 How. (49 U. S.) 163, 168; Stone v. Mississippi (1879), 101 U. S. 814.

This power being essential to the maintenance of the authority of local government, and to the safety and welfare of the people, is inalienable. As was said by Chief Justice WAITE, referring to earlier decisions to the same effect:—

"No legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. The people themselves cannot do it, much less their servants. The supervision of both these subjects of governmental power is continuing in its nature, and they are to be dealt with as the special exigencies of the moment may require. Government is organized with a view to their preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to provide for them. For this purpose, the largest legislative discretion is allowed, and the discretion cannot be parted with any more than the power itself." Stone v. Mississippi (1879), 101 U. S. 814, 819.

See, also, Butchers' Union, etc., Co. v. Crescent City, etc., Co. (1884), 111 U. S. 746, 753; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co. (1885), 115 U. S. 650, 672; New Orleans v. Houston (1886), 119 U. S. 265, 275.

The police power extends not only to things intrinsically dangerous to the public health, such as infected rags or diseased meat, but to things which, when used in a lawful manner, are subjects of property and commerce, and yet may be used so as to be injurious or dangerous to the life, the health, or the morals of the people. Gunpowder, for instance, is a subject of commerce, and of lawful use; yet, because of its explosive and dangerous quality, all admit that the State may regulate its keeping and sale. And there is no article, the right of the State to control or prohibit the sale or manufacture of which within its limits, is better established than intoxicating liquors: License Cases (1847), 5 How. (46 U. S.) 504; Downham v. Alexandria Council (1869), 10 Wall. (77 U. S.) 173; Bartemeyer v. Iowa (1873), 18 Wall. (85 U. S.) 129; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts (1877), 97 U. S. 25; Tiernan v. Rinker (1880), 102 Id. 123; Foster v. Kansas (1884), 112 U. S. 201; Mugler v. Kansas and Kansas v. Ziebold (1887), 123 Id. 623; Kidd v. Pearson (1888), 128 U. S. 1; Eilenbecker v. District Court (1890), 134 U. S. 31.

In Beer Co. v. Massachusetts above cited, this Court affirming the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, reported in 115 Mass. 153, held that a statute of the State, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, including malt liquors, except as therein provided, applied to a corporation which the State had long before chartered, and authorized to hold real and personal property, for the purpose of manufacturing malt liquors. Among the rea

sons assigned by this Court for its judgment were the following:

"If the public safety or the public morals require the discontinuance of any manufacture or traffic, the hand of the legislature cannot be stayed from providing for its discontinuance, by any incidental inconvenience which individuals or corporations may suffer. All rights are held subject to the police power of the State. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the extent and boundaries of the police power, and however difficult it may be to render a satisfactory definition of it, there seems to be no doubt that it does extend to the protection of the lives, health, and property of the citizens, and to the preservation of good order and the public morals. The legislature cannot, by any contract, divest itself of the power to provide for these objects. They belong emphatically to that class of objects which demand the application of the maxim, salus populi suprema lex; and they are to be attained and provided for by such appropriate means as the legislative discretion may devise. That discretion can no more be bargained away than the power itself. Since we have already held, in the case of Bartemeyer v. Iowa, that as a measure of police regulation, looking to the preservation of public morals, a State law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors is not repugnant to any clause of the Constitution of the United States, we see nothing in the present case than can afford any sufficient ground for disturbing the decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts:" (97 U. S. 32,33).

In Mugler v. Kansas and Kansas v. Ziebold, above cited, a statute of Kansas, prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and declaring all places where such liquors were manufactured or sold in violation of the statute to be common nuisances, and prohibiting their future use for the purpose, was held to be a valid exercise of the police power of the State, even as applied to persons who, long before the passage of the statute, had constructed buildings specially adapted to such manufacture. It has also been adjudged that neither the grant of a license to sell intoxicating liquors, nor the payment of a tax on such