UNITED STATES. 



757 



American law Register in January, 1868. From the 

 very able and conclusive opinion in that case we 

 quote as follows : 



Navigation, however, is only one of the elements of 

 commerce. It i an element of commerce because it 

 affords the means of transporting passengers and mer- 

 chaudii'e, the interchange of which is commerce itself. 

 Any other mode of effecting this would be as much 

 an element of commerce as navigation. When this 

 transportation or interchange of commodities is carried 

 on by land, it Is commerce as well as when carried on by 

 water, and the power of Concress to regulate it is as am- 

 ple in the one case as in the other. The commerce among 

 the States spoken of in the Constitution must, at the 

 time that Instrument was adopted, have been mainly of 

 this character, for the steamboat, which lias created our 

 great internal commerce on the rivers, was then un- 

 known. 



Another means of transportation, equal In importance 

 to the steamboat, has also come into existence since the 

 Constitution was adopted : a means by which merchan- 

 dise is transported across States and kingdoms in the 

 game vehicle In which it started. The railroad now 

 shares with the steamboat the monopoly of the carrying 

 trade. The one has, with great benefit, been subjected 

 to the control of salutary Congressional legislation, be- 

 cause it Is an Instrument of commerce. Is there any 

 reason why the other should not* However this ques- 

 tion may be answered in regard to that commerce which 

 Is conducted wholly within the limits of a State, and is 

 therefore neither foreign commerce nor commerce among 

 the Slate**, it seems to me that where these roads become 

 parts of great highways of our Union, transporting a com- 

 merce which embraces many States, and destined, as some 

 of these mads are. to become the channels through which 

 the nations of Europe and Asia shall interchange their com- 

 modities, there can be no reason to doubt that to regulate 

 them Is to regulate commerce both with foreign nations 

 and among the Stales; and that to refuse to do this is a 

 refusal to discharge one of the most important duties of 

 the Federal Government. As already intimated, the 

 shackles with which the different States fettered com- 

 merce, in their selfish efforts to benefit themselves at the 

 expense of their confederates, was one of the main 

 causes which led to the formation nf onr present Consti- 

 tution. The wonderful growth of that commerce, since 

 It has been placed exclusively nnder the control of the 

 Federal Government, has justified the wisdom of our 

 fathers. But are we to remit the most valnable part of 

 that commerce icaln to the control of the States, and to 

 the consequent vexations and burdens which the States 

 may impose through whose territories it must be carried 

 on ? And must all this be permitted because the carrying 

 IB done by a method not thought of when the Constitution 

 was framed ? For myself I must say I have no donbt of 

 the ri?ht of Congress to prescribe all needful and proper 

 regulations for the conduct of this immense traffic over 

 any railroad which has voluntarily hcceme part of one of 

 those lines of inter-State communication, or to authorize 

 the creation of such roads, when the purposes of inter- 

 state transportation ol persons and property justify or 

 require It. 



The recent decision of the Supreme Court in the 

 ewe of the State freight tax (15 Wallace, 232) seems 

 to the committee entirely conclusive of the question 

 we are considering. In that case inter-State com- 

 merce by railway was held to be the subject exclu- 

 sively of congressional control nnd regulation, and a 

 statute of the State of Pennsylvania was held to b 

 uncou itid void because it attempted to do 



that which the court held to be in the nature of a 

 regulation of that commerce. The regulation at- 

 tempted by the State was in the shape of a tax upon 

 freight carried hv any railroad or other transporta- 

 ti'nt eompiiny "doing business within the State of 

 Pennsylvania." The court hold that this was a 

 regulation of commerce, and being such, in so far as 

 it applied to inter-State commerce, it was unconstitu- 

 tional. The opinion in this case is itself an admira- 

 ble and exhaustive treatise upon the very question 

 we are considering. Its conclusion is that the State 

 can make no law in the nature of a regulation of 

 commerce which can apply to "freight taken up 

 within the State and earned out, or taken up in 

 other 8tt nnd brought within her limits." In 

 iMivprinir the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice 

 Strong said : 



Beyond all question the transportation of freight or of 

 the subjects of commerce for the purpose of exchange or 

 sale is a constituent of commerce itself. This hag never 

 been doubted, and probably the transportation of articles 

 of trade from one State to another was the prominent 

 idea in the minds of the framere of the Constitution when 

 to Congress was committed the power to reyulate com- 

 merce among the several States. * * * Nor does it make 

 anydifference whether this interchange of commodities is 

 by land or by water. In either caee the bringing of the 

 goods from the seller to the buyer is commerce. 



It is by no means important, in order to establish 

 the power of Congress to pass the bill reported, that 

 it should be made to appear that the power of Con- 

 gress over inter-State commerce is exclusive. The 

 power is ample, whether it be exclusive or not. But 

 it seems to the committee that the case first cited is 

 conclusive of the question, and leaves no doubt that 

 the power of Congress is exclusive. Upon this point 

 the court say: 



It is not necessary to the present case to go at large 

 into the much-debated question whether the power given 

 to Conerees by the Constitution to regulate commerce 

 among ^he States is exclusive. In the earlier decisions 

 of this court it was said to have been so entirely vested 

 In Congress that no part of it can be exercised by a State. 

 It has indeed often been argued and sometimes intimated 

 by the court that so far as Congress has not legislated 

 on the subject the States may legislate respecting inter- 

 State commerce. Yet, if they can, why may they not add 

 regulations to commerce with foreign nations, beyond 

 those made by Congress, if not Inconsistent with them f 

 for the power over both foreign and Inter-State com- 

 merce is conferred upon the Federal Legislature by the 

 same words; and certainly it has never yet been decided 

 by this court that the power to regulate inter- State as 

 well as foreign commerce is not exclusively in Congreps. 

 And again the court says : "The rule has neen asserted 

 with great clearness that whenever the subjects over 

 which a power to regulate commerce is asserted are in 

 their nature national or adtmt of one uniform system or 

 plan of regulation, they may justly be said to be of such a 

 nature as to require exclusive legislation by Congress, 

 Surely transportation of passengers or merchandise 

 throngh a State, or from one State to another, is of this 

 nature." 



These authorities leave no room for doubt concern- 

 ing the power of Congress to regulate that commerce 

 among the several States which is now carried on by 

 means of railroads. They establish conclusively 

 that the power of Congress extends to all commerce 

 which concerns more than one State, and that it neces- 

 sarily includes the carrying of freight and passen- 

 gers from a place in one State to a place in another 

 State. It reaches and controls that commerce which 

 is beyond the reach of any single Stnte because not 

 completely internal within any one State. 



The consideration of the second proposition 

 is here omitted as less important. 



For the financial condition of the United 

 States, tee the article FINANCES. For the 

 foreign relations of the country, see the Presi- 

 dent's message in PUBLIC DOCUMENTS, and the 

 title DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. For the 

 military and naval affairs of the country, see 

 ARMY AND NAVT respectively; and for the 

 general condition of internal affairs, see CON- 

 OBE88 and the several States. 



The emigration to the United States in 1873 

 amounted to 437,004, and was of greater mag- 

 nitude than that of any preceding year, except 

 1872, when the number of alien passengers that 

 arrived was 449,483. This makes the total 

 number of immigrants, who have come to the 

 United States since 1820, 8,808,141, which, 

 with the estimated number of arrivals prior to 

 that date (250,000) makes 9,058,141 as the ag- 

 gregate number of aliens who have come from 

 foreign countries to our shores. It is calcu- 



