1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 379 
CHAPTER EL. 
THE LICENSE CASES. 
We have seen the police power so named by Chief Justice Mar- 
shall under the suggestion of Taney’s argument in Brown vs. 
Maryland, as a result of the perception by the chief justice of the 
truth that in spite of all constitutional limitations from the side of 
the central government there must remain in the states an indefi- 
nite fund of legislative and governmental power to provide for the 
countless actual and conceivable emergencies of local government. 
We have seen this name, rather suggested than adopted by him, 
wait for ten years and until after his death to become the current 
one for this idea. In the same time it had become the term, not 
yet quite exclusively used, for the same idea in the court where it 
originated ; that its currency was due to its getting involved in the 
slavery discussions, then just at an acute stage because of the growth 
of the southwest and the question of Texan annexation, seems to 
admit of no doubt. 
The origination and character of this development of our law 
becomes still plainer with its next important appearance in the 
Supreme Court of the United States. This was in the’ license cases 
in 1846. Once more, as in Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, we have a 
judicial debate. The judges all concurred in the disposition of all 
the cases. None, however, was willing to accept any of the others’ 
reasons for doing so, except Justice Nelson, who contents himself 
with simply concurring with the chief justice. 
The cases were simply that Massachusetts and Rhode Island had 
enacted statutes requiring a license from the town selectmen to 
authorize any retail sale of spirits in less quantities than a certain 
number of gallons, more, however, than the fiiteen gallons which 
was the minimum quantity authorized by Congress to be imported 
at one time. New Hampshire had passed a similar act prescribing 
a similar condition for a sale in any quantity whatever. Each of 
15 How., 504. 
