such as transportation between the States, including the importation of goods from one State into another, Congress can alone act upon it and provide the needed regulations. The absence of any law of Congress on the subject is equivalent to its declaration that commerce in that matter shall be free. Thus the absence of regulations as to interstate commerce with reference to any particular subject is taken as a declaration that the importation of that article into the States shall be unrestricted. It is only after the importation is completed, and the property imported has mingled with and become a part of the general property of the State, that its regulations can act upon it, except so far as may be necessary to insure safety in the disposition of the import until thus mingled."

The conclusion follows that, as the grant of the power to regulate commerce among the States, so far as one system is required, is exclusive, the States cannot exercise that power without the assent of Congress, and, in the absence of legislation, it is left for the courts to determine when State action does or does not amount to such exercise, or, in other words, what is or is not a regulation of such commerce. When that is determined, controversy is at an end. Illustrations exemplifying the general rule are numerous. Thus we have held the following to be regulations of interstate commerce: A tax upon freight transported from State to State. Case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall., 232; a statute imposing a burdensome condition on ship-masters as a prerequisite to the landing of passengers, Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S., 259; a statute prohibiting the driving or conveying of any Texas, Mexican or Indian cattle, whether sound or diseased, into the State between the first day of March and the first day of November in each year, Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S., 465; a statute requiring every auctioneer to collect and pay into the state treasury a tax on his sales, when applied to imported goods in the original packages by him sold for the importer, Cook v. Pennsylvania, 97 U. S., 566; a statute intended to regulate or tax, or to impose any other restrictions upon, the transmission of persons or property, or telegraphic messages, from one State to another, Wabash, St. Louis &c. Railway v. Illinois, 118 U. S., 557; a statute levying a tax upon non-resident drummers offering for sale or selling goods, wares or merchandise by sample, manufactured or belonging to citizens of other States, Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S., 489.

[Here follow similar rules derived from decisions in County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S., 691; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107

U. S., 678; Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U. S., 691; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S., 622; Morgan Steamship Co. v. Louisiana Board of Health, 118 U. S., 455; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S., 465; Nashville &c. Railway Co. v. Alabama, 128 U. S., 96; Kimmish v. Ball, 129 U. S., 217; Welton v. The State of Missouri, 91 U. S., 275; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S., 446; Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S., 501; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S., 344; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S., 623; Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall., 129; Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S., 25; Foster v. Kansas, 112 U. S., 201; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S., 1; and Eilenbecker v. District Court of Plymouth County, 134 U. S., 31.]

These decisions rest upon the undoubted right of the States of the Union to control their purely internal affairs, in doing which they exercise powers not surrendered to the national government; but whenever the law of the State amounts essentially to a regulation of commerce with foreign nations or among the States, as it does when it inhibits, directly or indirectly, the receipt of an imported commodity or its disposition before it has ceased to become an article of trade between one State and another, or another country and this, it comes in conflict with a power which, in this particular, has been exclusively vested in the general government, and is therefore void.

In Mugler v. Kansas, supra, the court said (p. 662) that it could not "shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all, that the public health, the public morals and the public safety may be endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact, established by statistics accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, pauperism and crime existing in the country are, in some degree at least, traceable to this evil." And that "if in the judgment of the legislature [of a State] the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for the maker's own use, as a beverage, would tend to cripple, if it did not defeat, the effort to guard the community against the evils attending the excessive use of such liquors, it is not for the courts, upon their views as to what is best and safest for the community, to disregard the legislative determination of that question. . . . Nor can it be said that government interferes with or impairs any one's constitutional rights of liberty or of property, when it determines that the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks, for general or individual use, as a beverage, are, or may become, hurtful to society, and constitute, therefore, a business in which no one may lawfully engage." Undoubtedly, it is for the legislative branch of the

state governments to determine whether the manufacture of particular articles of traffic, or the sale of such articles, will injuriously affect the public, and it is not for Congress to determine what measures a State may properly adopt as appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety; but notwithstanding it is not vested with supervisory power over matters of local administration, the responsibility is upon Congress, so far as the regulation of interstate commerce is concerned, to remove the restriction upon the State in dealing with imported articles of trade within its limits, which have not been mingled with the common mass of property therein, if in its judgment the end to be secured justifies and requires such action.

Prior to 1888 the statutes of Iowa permitted the sale of foreign liquors imported under the laws of the United States, provided the sale was by the importer in the original casks or packages, and in quantities not less than those in which they were required to be imported; and the provisions of the statute to this effect were declared by the Supreme Court of Iowa, in Pearson v. International Distillery, 72 Iowa, 348, 354, to be "intended to conform the statute to the doctrine of the United States Supreme Court, announced in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat., 419, and License Cases, 5 How., 504, so that the statute should not conflict with the laws and authority of the United States." But that provision of the statute was repealed in 1888, and the law so far amended that we understand it now to provide that, whether imported or not, wine cannot be sold in Iowa except for sacramental purposes, nor alcohol, except for specified chemical purposes, nor intoxicating liquors, including ale and beer, except for pharmaceutical and medicinal purposes, and not at all except by citizens of the State of Iowa, who are registered pharmacists, and have permits obtained as prescribed by the statute, a permit being also grantable to one discreet person in any township where a pharmacist does not obtain it.

The plaintiffs in error are citizens of Illinois, are not pharmacists, and have no permit, but import into Iowa beer, which they sell in original packages, as described. Under our decision in Bowman v. Chicago &c. Railway Co., supra, they had the right to import this beer into that State, and in the view which we have expressed they had the right to sell it, by which act alone it would become mingled in the common mass of property within the State. Up to that point of time, we hold that in the absence of congressional permission to do so, the State had no power to

interfere by seizure, or any other action, in prohibition of importation and sale by the foreign or non-resident importer. 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, accommodation to it, without serious inconvenience, may readily be found, to use the language of Mr. Justice Johnson, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 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 8 of Art. 1 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.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE BREWER, dissenting.

MINNESOTA v. BARBER.

136 U. S., 313. Decided 1890.

[The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court.] MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court. Henry E. Barber, the appellee, was convicted before a justice of the peace in Ramsey County, Minnesota, of the offense of having wrongfully and unlawfully offered and exposed for sale, and of having sold for human food, one hundred pounds of fresh uncured beef, part of an animal slaughtered in the State of Illinois, but which had not been inspected in Minnesota, and "certified" before slaughter by an inspector appointed under the laws of the latter State. Having been committed to the common jail of the county pursuant to a judgment of imprisonment for a term of thirty days, he sued out a writ of habeas corpus from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota, and prayed to be discharged from such imprisonment, upon the ground that the statute of that State, approved April 16, 1889, and under which he was prosecuted, was repugnant to the provision of the Constitution giving Congress power to regulate commerce among the several States, as well as to the provision declaring that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. Art. 1, Sec. 8. Art. 4, Sec. 2. The court below, speaking by Judge Nelson, held the statute to be in violation of both of these provisions, and discharged the prisoner from custody. In re Barber, 39 Fed. Rep., 641. A similar conclusion in reference to the same statute had been previously reached by Judge Blodgett, holding the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois. Swift v. Sutphin, 39 Fed. Rep., 630.

From the judgment discharging Barber the State has prosecuted the present appeal. Rev. Stat., § 764; 23 Stat., 437, c. 353.

Attorneys representing persons interested in maintaining the validity of a statute of Indiana, alleged to be similar to that of Minnesota, were allowed to participate in the argument in this court, and to file briefs.

The statute of Minnesota upon the validity of which the decision of the case depends is as follows: Laws of 1889, c. 8, p. 51. . . [Here follows the full text of the act, which is entitled "An act for the protection of the public health by providing for inspection, before slaughter, of cattle, sheep and swine de