1900. ] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 475 
what shall be carried and how, and to provide a punishment for at- 
tempting to use the mails unlawfully. The court thought the free- 
dom of the press sufficiently vindicated by asserting that Congress 
had no power at the same time to refuse to carry by mail printed 
matter and to forbid its diffusion by other means. So it was held 
that the conviction was warranted. Congress could not authorize 
an inspection of sealed matters except upon a warrant duly issued 
for such purpose, but it might forbid the transportation of obscene 
or fraudulent matters, and if they were unsealed could ascertain 
their character by the inspection of the postal officers and employés. 
The old dispute between President Jackson and Senator Calhoun 
over the former’s ' proposition to exclude anti-slavery publications 
from the mails in slave states, and the conclusion that Congress 
had no such power, was brought forth to aid the petitioner. The 
court says, however, that the conclusion then reached rested upon 
an assumption that if Congress had such power, it had also the 
power to forbid the circulation of printed matter in the states by 
other means than the mails, at least over postal roads, and all roads, 
waterways and railroads might be declared postal roads, and Con- 
gress thus be invested with authority to prohibit absolutely the 
circulation of anything of which it might disapprove. This as- 
sumption the court denies and, therefore, the conclusion from it— 
that all such laws were invalid. 
The idea often propounded, and which derives support from ex- 
pressions of the federal Supreme Court, to the effect that the police 
power is exclusive and belongs to the state, and that no such power 
pertains in any degree to the federal government, could not well 
get a harder blow than this decision. Evidently the court con- 
cluded that the only distinction between powers of government is 
in the subjects to which they were applied, and consequent varia- 
tions of the manner of exercising them. The use of the power to 
establish post offices and post roads, incidentally to protect the 
people of the states from lottery enticements, would seem to show — 
conclusively enough the difficulty in finding any other ground of 
distinction between powers. Perhaps the same thing will appear a 
little more plainly in the Debs case. 
In this year of 1877, too, the principles of * Bartemeyer vs. Iowa 
were reaffirmed in briefer terms and without the cautious limita- 
1 Annual Message 1835, Messages, etc., of Presidents, Vol. iii, p. 175. 
2718 Wall, 129. 
