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the city of New Orleans, and other adjacent territory, requiring all such animals to be landed and slaughtered upon the property of a corporation created by the act, prohibiting the slaughter of animals except in the slaughter houses of the incorporation created, for a period of twenty-five years; but requiring the company to provide facilities for the slaughter of animals for the use of the public, and fixing a maximum fee to be paid by all butchers slaughtering animals at the place or places designated. The act provided penalties against all persons violating the provisions of the act. The butchers of New Orleans resisted the enforcement of the statute, alleging that it was in violation of the constitution of the United States in the following particulars: That it created an involuntary servitude forbidden by the thirteenth amendment; that it abridged the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; that it denied to the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws; and deprived them of their property without due process of law, contrary to the first section of the fourteenth amendment. After the case had been twice argued, the court overruled the contentions of the plaintiffs in error, and held that the statute, although it granted exclusive privileges, was within the police power of the state of Louisiana.35 Mr. Justice Miller, who delivered the opinion of the court, after stating the provisions of the statute, said, substantially:

"The power here exercised by the legislature of Louisiana is, in its essential nature, one which has been, up to the present period in the constitutional history of this country, always conceded to belong to the states, however it may now be questioned in some of its details. Unwholesome trades, slaughterhouses, operations offensive to the senses, the deposit of powder, the application of steam power to propel cars, the building with combustible materials, and the burial of the dead, may all be interdicted by law, in the midst of dense masses of population, on the general and rational principle, that every person ought so to use his property as not to injure his neighbors; and that private interests must be made subservient to the general interests of the community. This is called the police power; and it is declared that it is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of it than to mark

85 Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 131 (21:395).

its boundaries, or prescribe limits to its exercise. This power is, and must be from its very nature, incapable of any very exact definition or limitation. Upon it depends the security of social order, the life and health of the citizen, the comfort of an existence in a thickly populated community, the enjoyment of private and social life, and the beneficial use of property. It extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the state; and persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state. Of the perfect right of the legislature to do this no question ever was, or upon acknowledged general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural persons are concerned. The regulation of the place and manner of conducting the slaughtering of animals, and the business of butchering within a city, and the inspection of the animals to be killed for meat, and of the meat afterwards, are among the most necessary and frequent exercises of this power. It is not, therefore, needed that we should seek for a comprehensive definition, but rather look for the proper source of its exercise." He then entered into a consideration of all the constitutional questions raised by the plaintiffs in error, and, after an exhaustive examination of them, declared that it was not the intention of the amendments to transfer from the state governments to the federal government the exercise of powers heretofore belonging exclusively to the states.

§ 191. Same State police regulations incidentally affecting interstate and foreign commerce-Rights secured by the constitution.-One of the most fruitful sources of litigation in the supreme court of the United States, and one which, as shown by the reported cases, is often frivolous, is the contention, most usually brought forward by corporations engaged as common carriers, that state statutes enacted in the exercise of the police power are in conflict with, or are an invasion of the commercial power of the United States. These corporations are continuously engaged in making the most desperate and unreasonable assaults upon the municipal sovereignty and police power of the states, whenever that power is exercised for the protection of the community against corporate rapacity and dereliction of duty to the public. Scarcely any state police regulation of public utilities, however reasonable, just and humane-not even a

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state statute prohibiting the operation of freight trains on Sunday, and giving trainmen the seventh day's cessation from labor, 30 the wisdom of which is concurred in by the opinions of the "philosophers, moralists, and statesmen of all nations,' and "founded in experience, and sustained by science" 37. has escaped the determined and vigorous assaults of those "ideal persons," created by the states, and who have turned upon their creators, the state, and sought to destroy their inalienable and unsurrendered powers. In addition to the claim in such cases that the state legislation involved is in conflict with the commercial power of the United States, the further contention is usually set up that such legislation is in conflict with some right secured by the federal constitution, as that it denies to some person or corporation the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or of life, liberty or property without due process of law, or of the liberty of contract, or the equal protection of the laws.

It would be a hopeless task to undertake to review all of the adjudicated cases upon this important subject and quite beyond the purpose and limits of this work; but it is confidently believed that the rule upon this subject established by all the authorities is substantially as follows:

A statute enacted by a state for the protection and promotion of the interests, convenience, safety, health, life, peace, morals, education, good order, or general welfare of society, or the political community called the state, or for the development of its resources, and which has a real and substantial relation to the public end intended to be accomplished by its enactment, and which is not directed against, nor imposes a direct burden upon interstate or foreign commerce, and which does not contravene the constitution of the United States, nor infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument, is not to be deemed inhibited by the federal constitution, although such state statute may, in its application and operation, incidentally, or indirectly, or remotely, or collaterally affect such commerce, and may reasonably restrict, for the good of the whole community, the rights of corporations and individuals; but when such state statute, even if based upon the acknowledged police power of the state, or purporting to have been en

36 Hennington v. State of Georgia, 163 U. S. 299, 319 (41:166).

37 Petit v. Minnesota, 177 U. S. 164, 168 (44:716).

acted for the protection and promotion of the interests, convenience, safety, health, life, peace, morals, education, good order, or general welfare of society, or for the development of the resources of the state, has no real and substantial relation to those objects or either of them, and is in conflict with the exercise by the general government of any power vested in it by the constitution, or is, beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured or granted by the fundamental law, it will be declared invalid and void by the supreme court of the United States, when the question of its validity or invalidity is duly presented to it in an appropriate judicial proceeding between competent parties. In all such cases, however, if there be a well-founded doubt as to the validity of the statute, that doubt must be resolved in favor of its validity.

38

§ 192. Same Sunday laws.-The state legislature possessing the undisputed power to enact laws to promote the order and to secure the comfort, happiness, health, and the moral and social elevation of the people composing the political community, may designate one day in the week, when all work and

38 Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company v. State of Ohio ex rel. Lawrence, 173 U. S. 285, 338 (43:702); Hennington v. Georgia, 163 U. S. 299, 317 (41:166); Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713 (18:96); Pound v. Turck, 95 U. S. 459 (24:525); Escambia Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678 (27:442); Cardwell v. American Bridge Co., 113 U. S. 205 (28:959); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. James, 162 U. S. 650 (40:1105); Richmond & N. Railroad Co. v. R. A. Patterson Tobacco Co., 169 U. S. 311 (42:759); Wilson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245 (7:412); Chicago & N. W. R. Co. v. Fuller, 17 Wall. 560 (21:710); Hannibal & St. J. R. Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465 (24:527); Morgan's L. & T. R. & S. S. Co. v. Louisiana Board of Health, 118 U. S. 455 (30:237); Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v.

Alabama, 128 U. S. 96 (32:352); Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465 (31:508); Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 613 (42:878); New York, N. H. & H. Railroad Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628 (41:853); Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210 (6:23); Sherlock V. Alling, 93 U. S. 99, (23:819); Cooley v. Philadelphia Port Wardens, 12 How. 299 (13:996); Muggler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623 (31:205); Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313 (34:455); Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207 (48:148); Sumat v. Davenport, 22 How. 227 (16:243); Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86 (34:620); Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. V. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 161 U. S. 670, 704 (40·849); Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113 (24:77); Pearsall v. Great Northern R. Co., 161 U. S. 646 (40:838).

labor within the state, works of necessity and charity excepted, shall cease; but such statutes prescribe a civil duty, and not a religious observance.39 Regulations of this character are valid, although incidentally affecting foreign and interstate cominerce, as in the instance of the statute of the state of Georgia forbidding the running of freight trains, with certain exceptions, within the territorial limits of the state on Sunday.40

§193. Same-Power of the state to regulate the use of property "affected with a public interest."-The police power of the state is not confined to laws and regulations for the protection and promotion of the public safety, health, morals, and good order of society; but whatever is contrary to public policy or inimical to the public interest is subject to the police power of the state, and within legislative control, and in the exercise of such power the legislature is vested with a large discretion, which, if exercised in good faith and within constitutional limits, is beyond the reach of judicial control.11

When one becomes a member of society, he necessarily parts with some rights or privileges which, as an individual not affected by his relations to others, he might retain. "A body politic is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good;" this social compact does not confer power upon the whole people to control rights which are purely and exclusively private, but it does authorize the establishment of laws requiring each citizen to so conduct himelf, and so use his own property as not unnecessarily to injure another. This principle, it is said, "is the very essence of government, and has found expression in the maxim, sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas." And from this source is derived the police power, which is nothing more

39 Petit v. Minnesota, 177 U. S. 164, 168 (44:716); Hennington v. State of Georgia, 163 U. S. 299, 319 (41:166); Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio State, 387; Specht v. Com., 8 Pa. 312, S. C. 49 Am. Dec. 518; Frolickstein v. Mobile, 40 Ala. 725; Ex parte Andrews, 18 Cal. 678; State v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 24 W. Va. 783; Scales v. State, 47 Ark. 476, S. C. 58 Am. Rep.

768; State v. Awles, 20 Mo. 214;
Nashville v. Linck, 12 Lea, 499.
40 Hennington v. State of Geor-
gia, 163 U. S. 299, 319 (41:166),
affirming the case, 90 Georgia, 396.

41 Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 161 U. S. 677, 704 (40:849); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. North Carolina Corp. Com., 206 U. S. 1-27 (51.933).

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