386 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
1“ But looking to the relations which exist between the general govern- 
ment and the different state sovereignties, the question whether the 
laws in these cases are within the power of the states to pass without an 
encroachment on the authority of the general government is one of 
those conflicts of laws between the two governments, involving the true 
extent of the powers in each, which is very properly placed under our 
revision.” 
Agreeing with Chief Justice Taney and Justice Catron that the 
states have some powers of legislation over interstate commerce, 
he, nevertheless, is unable to find these license laws, even in the 
case of New Hampshire, prohibiting as it did absolutely sales 
without license, to be regulations of commerce. As he truly 
enough says, for more than half a century such license laws had 
been universally in use among the states, and no one had thought 
of regarding them as regulations of foreign commerce. ‘The fact 
that they might have some effect on commerce could not be allowed 
to vitiate them if in fact they were properly directed at and had 
their principal effect upon something else and that something was 
within the state jurisdiction. He strikes the burning question 
really underlying all this when he discusses the principles as appli- 
cable to the exclusion of persons as well as things, and where he 
refers again to” Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, the police power and run- 
away slaves. 
Judge Grier also concurs in the judgments but agrees with Jus- 
tice McLean as to the exclusive nature of the power of Congress 
over commerce, though he does not consider that point involved. 
He finds in the ‘‘ complete, unqualified and exclusive’’ power of 
‘internal police ’’ developed by Justice Barbour in the case of New 
York City vs. Miln and in the maxim “ Salus populi, Suprema lex 
est’? a sufficient warrant for all three of the laws under considera- 
tion: 
‘The police power which is exclusively in the state is alone competent 
to the correction of these great evils, and all measures of restraint or 
prohibition necessary to effect the purpose are within the scope of that 
authority.” 
His conclusion is that the evils of pauperism and crime which 
have their origin in the traffic in ardent spirits are ample warrant 
for the placing them under the jurisdiction of this authority. 
1 5 How., 618. 2 [d,, 628-9. 
