exclusively to congress by the constitution is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the state, unless placed there by congressional action. Henderson v. Mayor, 92 U. S. 259; Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 454; Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U. S. 489, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592. The power to regulate cominerce among the states is a unit, but, if particular subjects within its operation do not require the application of a general or uniform system, the states may legislate in regard to them with a view to local needs and circumstances, until congress otherwise directs; but the power thus exercised by the states is not identical in its extent with the power to regulate commerce among the states. The power to pass laws in respect to internal commerce, inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws, and laws in relation to bridges, ferries, and highways, belongs to the class of powers pertaining to locality, essential to local intercommunication, to the progress and development of local prosperity, and to the protection, the safety, and the welfare of society, originally necessarily belonging to, and upon the adoption of the constitution reserved by, the states, except so far as falling within the scope of a power confided to the general government. Where the subject-matter requires a uniform system as between the states, the power controlling it is vested exclusively in congress, and cannot be encroached upon by the states; but where, in relation to the subject-matter, different rules may be suitable for different localities, the states may exercise powers which, though they may be said to partake of the nature of the power granted to the general government, are strictly not such, but are simply local powers, which have full operation until or unless circumscribed by the action of congress in effectuation of the general power. Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299. It was stated in the thirty-second number of the Federalist that the states might exerise concurrent and independent power in all cases but three: First, where the power was lodged exclusively in the federal constitution; second, where it was given to the United States and prohibited to the states; third, where, from the nature and subjects of the power, it must be necessarily exercised by the national government exclusively. But it is easy to see that congress may assert an authority, under one of the granted powers, which would exclude the exercise by the states upon the same subject of a different, but similar, power, between which and that possessed by the general government no inherent repugnancy existed. Whenever, however, a particular power of the general government is one which must necessarily be exercised by it, and congress remains silent, this is not only not a concession that the powers reserved by the states may be exerted as if the specific power had not been elsewhere reposed, but, on the trary, the only legitimate conclusion is he general government intended that hould not be affirmatively exer1 the action of the states cannot be permitted to effect that which would be incompatible with such intention. Hence, inasmuch as interstate commerce, consisting in the transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities, is national in its character, and must be governed by a uniform system, so long as congress does not pass any law to regulate it, or allowing the states so to do, it thereby indicates its will that such commerce shall be free and untrammeled. County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U.S. 691; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622, 631, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091; Railroad Co. v. Illinois, 118 U.S.557, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 4; Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U. S. 489, 493, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592. That ardent spirits, distilled liquors, ale, and beer are subjects of exchange, barter, and traffic, like any other commodity in which a right of traffic exists, and are so recognized by the usages of the commercial world, the laws of congress, and the decisions of courts, is not denied. Being thus articles of commerce, can a state, in the absence of legislation on the part of congress, prohibit their importation from abroad or from a sister state? or, when imported, prohibit their sale by the im porter? If the importation cannot be prohibited without the consent of congress, when does property imported from abroad, or from a sister state, so become part of the common mass of property within a state as to be subject to its unimpeded control? In Brown v. Maryland, supra, the act of the state legislature drawn in question was held invalid, as repugnant to the prohibition of the constitution upon the states to lay any impost or duty upon imports or exports, and to the clause granting the power to regulate commerce; and it was laid down, by the great magistrate who presided over this court for more than a third of a century, that the point of time when the prohibition ceases, and the power of the state to tax commences, is not the instant when the article enters the country, but when the importer has so acted upon it that it has become incorporated and mixed up with the mass of property in the country, which happens when the original package is no longer such in his hands; that the distinction is obvious between a tax which intercepts the import as an import on its way to become incorporated with the general mass of property, and a tax which finds the article already incorporated with that mass by the act of the importer; that, as to the power to reg ulate commerce, none of the evils which proceeded from the feebleness of the federal government contributed more to the great revolution which introduced the present system than the deep and general con viction that commerce ought to be regulated by congress; that the grant should be as extensive as the mischief, and should comprehend all foreign commerce, and all commerce among the states; that that power was complete in itself, ackno wedged no limitations other than those prescribed by the constitution, was co-extensive with the subject on which it acts, and not to be stopped at the external boundary of a state, but must be capable of entering its *112 interior; that the right to sell any article imported was an inseparable incident to the right to import it; and that the principles expounded in the case applied equally to importations from a sister state. Manifestly this must be so, for the same public policy applied to commerce among the states as to foreign commerce, and not a reason could be assigned for confiding the power over the one which did not conduce to establish the propriety of confiding the power over the other. Story, Const. § 1066. And although the precise question before us was not ruled in Gibbons v. Ogden and Brown v. Maryland, yet we think it was virtually involved and answered, and that this is demonstrated, among other cases, in Bowman v. Railway Co., 125 U. S. 465, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689, 1062. In the latter case, section 1553 of the Code of the state of Iowa, as amended by chapter 66 of the Acts of the Twenty-first General Assembly in 1886, forbidding common carriers to bring intoxicating liquors in to the state from any other state or territory, without first being furnished with a certificate as prescribed, was declared invalid, because essentially a regulation of commerce among the states, and not sanctioned by the authority, express or implied, of congress. The opinion of the court, delivered by Mr. Justice MATTHEWS, the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice FIELD, and the dissenting opinion by Mr. Justice HARLAN, on behalf of Mr. Chief Justice WAITE, Mr. Justice GRAY, and himself, discussed the question involved in all its phases; and while the determination of whether the right of transportation of an article of commerce from one state to another includes by necessary implication the right of the consignee to sell it in unbroken packages at the place where the transportation terminates was in terms reserved, yet the argument of the majority conducts irresistibly to that conclusion, and we think we cannot do better than repeat the grounds upon which the decision was made to rest. It is there shown that the transportation of freight or of the subjects of commerce, for the purpose of exchange or sale, is beyond all question a constituent of commerce itself; that this was the prominent idea in the minds of the framers of the constitution, when to congress was committed the power to regulate commerce among the several states; that the power to prevent embarrassing restrictions by any state was the end desired; that the power was given by the same words and in the same clause by which was conferred power to regulate commerce with foreign nations; and that it would be absurd to suppose that the transmission of the subjects of trade from the state of the buyer, or from the place of production to the market, was not contemplated, for without that there could be no consummated trade, either with foreign nations or among the states. It is explained that, where state laws alleged to be regulations of commerce among the states have been sustained, they were laws which related to bridges or dams across streams, wholly within the state, or police or health laws, or to subjects of a kindred nature, not strictly of commercial regulation. But the transportation of passengers or of merchandise from one state to another is in its nature national, admitting of but one regulating power; and it was to guard against the possibility of commercial embarrassments which would result if one state could directly oi indirectly tax persons or property passing through it, or prohibit particular property from entrance into the state, that the power of regulating commerce among the states was conferred upon the federal government. "If in the present case," said Mr. Justice MATTHEWS, "the law of Iowa operated upon all merchandise sought to be brought from another state into its limits, there could be no doubt that it would be a regu lation of commmerce among the states;' and he concludes that this must be so, though it applied only to one class of articles of a particular kind. The legislation of congress on the subject of interstate, commerce by means of railroads, designed to remove trammels upon transportation between different states, and upon the subject of the transportation of passengers and merchandise, (Rev. St. §§ 4252-4289, inclusive,) including the transportation of nitro-glycerine and other similar explosive substances, with the proviso that, as to them, "any state, territory, district, city, or town within the United States" should not be prevented by the language used "from regulating or from prohibiting the traffic in or transportation of those substances between persons or places lying or being within their respective territorial limits, or from prohibiting the introduction thereof into such limits for sale, use, or consumption therein," is referred to as indicative of the intention of congress that the transportation of commodities between the states shall be free, except where it is positively restricted by congress itself, or by states in particular cases by the express permission of congress. It is said that the law in question was not an inspection law, the object of which "is to improve the quality of articles produced by the labor of a country, to fit them for exportation; or, it may be for domestic use, (Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,203; Turner v. Maryland, 107 U. S. 38, 55, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 44;) nor could it be regarded as a regulation of quarantine or a sanitary provision for the purpose of protecting the physical health of the community; nor a law to prevent the introduction into the state of diseases, contagious, infectious, or otherwise. Articles in such a condition as tend to spread disease are not merchantable, are not legitimate subjects of trade and commerce, and the self-protecting power of each state, therefore, may be rightfully exerted against their introduction, and such exercise of power cannot be considered a regulation of commerce, prohibited by the constitution; and the observations of Mr. Justice CATRON in the License Cases, 5 How. 504, 599, are quoted to the effect that what does not belong to commerce is within the jurisdition of the police power of the state, but that which does belong to commerce is within the jurisdiction of the United States; that to extend the police power over subjects of commerce would be to make commerce subordinate to that *114 *115 power, and would enable the state to bring | Can it be supposed that, by omitting any express declaration on the subject, congress has intended to submit to the several states the decision of the question in each locality of what shall and what shall not be articles of traffic in the interstate commerce of the country? If so, it has left to each state, according to its own caprice and arbitrary will, to discriminate for or against every article grown, produced, manufactured, or sold in any state, and sought to be introduced as an article of commerce into any other. If the state of Iowa may prohibit the importation of intoxicating liquors from all other states, it may also include tobacco, or any other article, the use or abuse of which it may deem deleterious. It may not choose, even, to be governed by considerations growing out of the health, comfort, or peace of the community. Its policy may be directed to other ends. It may choose to establish a system directed to the promotion and benefit of its own agriculture, manufactures, or arts of any dscription, and prevent the introduction and sale within its limits of any or of all articles that it may select as coming into competition with those which it seeks to protect. The police power of the state would extend to such cases, as well as to those in which it was sought to legislate in behalf of the health, peace, and morals of the people. In view of the commercial anarchy and confusion that would result from the diverse exertions of power by the several states of the Union, it cannot be supposed that the constitution or congress have intended to limit the freedom of commercial intercourse among the people of the several states." 5 How. 504, wherein laws passed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, in reference to the sale of spirituous liquors, came under review, and were sustained, although the members of the court who participated in the decisions did not concur in any common ground upon which to rest them. That of Peirce v. New Hampshire is perhaps the most important to be referred to here. In that case the defendants had been fined for selling a barrel of gin in New Hampshire which they had bought in Boston, and brought coastwise to Portsmouth, and there sold in the same barrel, and in the same condition in which it was purchased in Massachusetts, but contrary to the law of New Hampshire in that behalf. The conclusion of the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice TANEY is in these words: "Upon the whole, therefore, the law of New Hampshire is, in my judgment, a valid one; for, although the gin sold was an import from another state, and congress have clearly the power to regulate such importations, under the grant of power to regulate commerce among the several states, yet, as congress has made no regulation on the subject, the traffic in the article may be lawfully regulated by the state as soon as it is landed in its territory, and a tax imposed upon it, or a license required, or the sale altogether prohibited, according to the policy which the state may suppose to be its interest or duty to pursue. Referring to the cases of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the chief justice, after saying that if the laws of those states came in collision with the laws of congress authorizing the importation of spirits and distilled liquors, it would be the duty of the court to declare them void, thus continues: "It has, indeed, been suggested that, if a state deems the traffic in ardent spirits to be injurious to its citizens, and calculated to introduce immorality, vice. and pauperism into the state, it may con| stitutionally refuse to permit its importation, notwithstanding the laws of congress; and that a state may do this upon the same principles that it may resist and prevent the introduction of disease, pestiÏence, or pauperism from abroad. But it must be remembered that disease, pestilence, and pauperism are not subjects of commerce, although sometimes among its attendant evils. They are not things to be regulated and trafficked in, but to be prevented, as far as human foresight or human means can guard against them. But spirits and distilled liquors are universally admitted to be subjects of ownership and property, and are therefore subjects of exchange, barter, and traffic, like any other commodity in which a right of property exists. And congress, under its general power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, may prescribe what article of merchandise shall be admitted and what excluded; and may therefore admit or not, as it shall deem best, the importation of ardent spirits. And, inasmuch as the laws of congress authorize their importation, no state has a right to prohibit their These state laws act altogether upon the retail or domestic traffic within their respective borders. Many of the cases bearing upon the sub-introduction. ject are cited and considered in these opinions, and among others, the License Cases, * They act upon the article after it has passed the line of foreign commerce, and become a part of the general mass of property in the state. These laws may, indeed, discourage imports, and diminish the price which ardent spirits would otherwise bring. But, although a state is bound to receive and to permit the sale by the im- | porter of any article of merchandise which Congress authorizes to be imported, it is not bound to furnish a market for it, nor to abstain from the passage of any law which it may deem necessary or advisable to guard the health or morals of its citizens, although such law may discourage importation, or diminish the profits of the importer, or lessen the revenue of the general government. And if any state deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the constitution of the United States to prevent it from regulating and restraining the traffic, or from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper. 99 99 amid its great concerns could never find time to consider and provide) intended merely to make the power of the federal government supreme upon this subject over that of the states, then the omission of any prohibition is accounted for, and is consistent with the whole instrument. The supremacy of the laws of congress, in cases of collision with state laws, is secured in the article which declares that the laws of congress, passed in pursuance of the powers granted, shall be the supreme law; and it is only where both governments may legislate on the same subject that this article can operate. And he considers that the legislation of congress and the states has conformed to this construction from the foundation of the government, as exemplified in state laws in relation to pilots and pilotage, and health and quarantine laws. But, conceding the weight properly to be ascribed to the judicial utterances of this eminent jurist, we are constrained to say that the distinction between subjects in respect of which there can be of necessity only one system or plan of regulation for the whole country, and subjects local in their nature, and, so far as relating to commerce, mere aids, rather than regulations, does not appear to us to have been sufficiently recognized by him in arriving at the conclusions announced. That distinction has been settled by repeated decisions of this court, and can no longer be regarded as open to re-examination. After all, it amounts to no more than drawing the line between the exercise of power over commerce with foreign nations and among the states and the exercise of power over purely local commerce and local concerns. The authority of Peirce v. New Hampshire, in so far as it rests on the view that the law of New Hampshire was valid because congress had made no regulation on the subject, must be regarded as having been distinctly overthrown by the numerous cases hereinafter referred to. The New Hampshire case, the chief justice observed, differs from Brown v. Maryland, in that the latter was a case arising out of commerce with foreign nations, which congress had regulated by law; whereas, the case in hand was one of commerce between two states, in relation to which congress had not exercised its power. "But the law of New Hampshire acts directly upon an import from one state to another, while in the hands of the importer for sale, and is therefore a regulation of commerce, acting upon the article while it is within the admitted jurisdiction of the general government, and subject to its control and regulation. The question, therefore, brought up for decision is whether a state is prohibited by the constitution of the United States from making any regulations of foreign commerce, or of commerce with another state, although such regulation is confined to its own territory and made for its own convenience or interest, and does not come in conflict with any law of congress. In other words, whether the grant of power to congress is of itself a prohibition to the states, and renders all state laws upon the subject null and void." He declares it to appear to him very clear "that the mere grant of power to the general government cannot, upon any just principles of construction, be construed to be an absolute prohibition to the exercise of any power over the same subject by the states. controlling and supreme power over commerce with foreign nations and the several states is undoubtedly conferred upon congress. Yet, in my judgment, the state may, nevertheless, for the safety or convenience of trade, or for the protection of the health of its citizens, make regulations of commerce for its own ports and harbors, and for its own territory; and such regulations are valid unless they come in conflict with a law of congress." comments on the omission of any prohibi-gress on the subject is equivalent to its tion in terms and concludes that if, as he thinks, "the framers of the constitution (knowing that a multitude of minor regulations must be necessary, which congress The He *The doctrine now firmly established is, as stated by Mr. Justice FIELD, in Bowman v. Railway Co., 125 U. S. 507, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689, 1062, "that where the subject upon which congress can act under its commercial power is local in its nature or sphere of operation, such as harbor pilotage, the improvement of harbors, the establishment of beacons and buoys to guide vessels in and out of port, the construction of bridges over navigable rivers, the erection of wharves, piers, and docks, and the like, which can be properly regulated only by special provisions adapted to their localities, the state can act until congress interferes and supersedes its authority; but where the subject is national in its character, and admits and requires uniformity of regulation, affecting alike all the states, 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 con 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 is mingled with and becomes 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 intere state 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, etc., 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 1st day of March and the 1st 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 restriction upon, the transmission of persons or property, or telegraphic messages, from one state to another, (Railway Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 4;) 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. Taxing Dist., 120 U. S. 489, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592.) On the other hand, we have decided in County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, that a state statute providing for the improvement of the river, bay, and harbor of Mobile, since what was authorized to be done was only as a mere aid to commerce, was, in the absence of action by congress, not in conflict with the constitution; in Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 185, that the state of Illinois could lawfully authorize the city of Chicago to deepen, widen, and change the channel of, and construct bridges over, the Chicago river; in Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U. S. 691, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 732, that the jurisdiction and control of wharves properly belong to the states in which they are situated, unless otherwise provided; in Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622,1 that a general state tax, laid alike upon all property, is 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091. not unconstitutional, because it happens to fall upon goods which, though not then intended for exportation, are subsequently exported; in Morgan's S. S. Co. v. Board of Health, 118 U. S. 455, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1114, that a state law requiring each vessel passing a quarantine station to pay a fee for examination as to her sanitary condition, and the ports from which she came, was a rightful exercise of police power; in Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 564, and in Railway Co. v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28, that a state statute requiring locomotive engineers to be examined and obtain a license was not in its nature a regulation of commerce; and in Kimmish v. Ball, 129 U. S. 217, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 277, that a statute providing that a person having in his possession Texas cattle, which had not been wintered north of the southern boun-. dary of Missouri at least one winter, shall be liable for any damages which may accrue from allowing them to run at large, and thereby spread the disease known as the Texas fever, was constitutional. We held also in Welton v. State, 91 U. S. 275, that a state statute requiring the payment of a license tax from persons dealing in goods, wares, and merchandise, which are not the growth, produce, or manufacture of the state, by going from place to place to sell the same in the state, and requiring no such license tax from persons selling in a similar way goods which are the growth, produce, or manufacture of the state, is an unconstitutional regulation; and to the same effect in Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 454, in relation to a tax upon non-resident sellers of intoxicating liquors to be shipped into a state from places without it. But it was held in Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501, and in Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344, that the right conferred by the patent laws of the United States did not remove the tangible property in which an invention might take form from the operation of the laws of the state, nor restrict the power of the latter to protect the community from direct danger inherent in particular articles. In Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 273, it was adjudged that "state legislation which prohibits the manufacture of spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors within the limits of the state, to be there sold or bartered for general use as a beverage, does not necessarily infringe any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the constitution of the United States, or by the amendments thereto." And this was in accordance with our decisions in Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S.*25; and Foster v. Kansas,* 112 U. S. 201, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 8. So in Kidd r. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 6, it was held that a state statute which provided (1) that foreign intoxicating liquors may be imported into the state, and there kept for sale by the importer, in the orig inal packages, or for transportation in such packages and sale beyond the limits of the state, and (2) that intoxicating liquors may be manufactured and sold within the state for mechanical, medicinal, cu |