competition" for the thoughtful consideration of the Federal Trade Commission.

The regulation and control of merely self-regarding conduct, the multiplication of administrative boards and similar agencies and the invasion of the field of private business, which I have thus far particularized, illustrate rather than enumerate the various tendencies of modern legislation and government to depart from those sound and wholesome principles which hitherto have been supposed to operate in the direction of preserving the individual against undue restraint and oppression.

Class legislation, the most odious form of legislative abuse, is by no means infrequent. In state and nation statutes are to be found which select for special privilege one class of great voting strength or set apart for special burdens another class of small numerical power at the polls.

Next to the separation and distribution of the legislative, executive and judicial powers, the most important feature of our plan of government is the division of the aggregate powers of government between the nation and the several states, to the one by enumeration and to the other by reservation. I believe in the most liberal construction of the national powers actually granted, but I also believe in the rigid exclusion of the national government from those powers which have been actually reserved to the states. The local government is in immediate contact with the local problems and should be able to deal with them more wisely and more effectively than the general government having its seat at a distance. The need of preserving the power and enforcing the duty of local self-government is imperative, and especially so in a country, such as ours, of vast population and extent, possessing almost every variety of soil and climate, of greatly diversified interests and occupations, and having all sorts of differing conditions to deal with. There is, unfortunately, however, a constantly growing tendency on the part of the general government to intrude upon the powers of the state governments, more by way of relieving them from responsibilities they are willing to shirk than by usurping powers they are anxious to retain. Especially does any inroad or suggested inroad upon the federal treasury for state purposes meet with instant and hearty approval. The grave danger of all this is that the ability as well as the desire.

of the people of the several states to carry their own burdens and correct their own shortcomings will gradually lessen and finally disappear, with the result that the states will become mere geographical subdivisions and the federal character of the nation will cease to exist save as a more or less discredited tradition.

These and many other matters afford temptation to further discussion to which I cannot yield without undue trespass upon your patience, which I feel has already been quite sufficiently taxed.

Fifty years ago a great French writer-Laboulaye, I think it was-speaking through the lips of one of his American characters, uttered these words of wisdom and of power, words which are as true today as they were when they were written:

"The more democratic a people is, the more it is necessary. that the individual be strong and his property sacred. We are a nation of sovereigns, and everything that weakens the individual tends toward demagogy, that is, toward disorder and ruin; whereas everything that fortifies the individual tends toward democracy, that is, the reign of reason and the Evangel. A free country is a country where each citizen is absolute master of his conscience, his person, and his goods. If the day ever comes when individual rights are swallowed up by those of the general interest, that day will see the end of Washington's handiwork; we will be a mob and we will have a master."

It is now as it has always been, that when the visionary or the demagogue advocates a new law or policy or scheme of government which tends to curtail the liberties of the individual he loudly insists that he is acting for the general interest and thereby surrounds his propaganda with such a halo of sancity that opposition or even candid criticism is looked upon as sacrilege.

But the time has come when every true lover of his country must refuse to be misled or overawed by specious claims of this character. Individual liberty and the common good are not incompatible, but are entirely consistent with one another. Both are desirable and both may be had, but we must demand the substance of both and not accept the counterfeit of either. Crimes, we are told, have been committed in the name of liberty. But either the thing that was called a crime was no crime or the name of liberty was profaned, as though one should become an

anarchist in the name of order. Liberty and order are the two most precious things beneath the stars. The duty which rests upon us of this generation is the same that has rested upon all the generations of the past: to be vigilant to see and resolute to repel every attempt, however insidious or indirect, to destroy liberty in the name of order, or order in the name of liberty, for the alternative of the one is despotism and of the other the mob.

THE REGULATION OF COMMERCE BETWEEN THE STATES UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

BY

THOMAS W. HARDWICK,

OF GEORGIA.

Foremost among the generative forces that produced the Constitution of the United States was the necessity to lodge in some one central authority, rather than in 13 different and scattered authorities, the power to regulate commerce, both with foreign nations and among the states themselves.

A dispute as to jurisdiction over the waters of the Potomac River and of Chesapeake Bay led to the appointment of a joint commission by Maryland and Virginia; and from the recommendations of that joint commission resulted the Annapolis Convention of 1785, and it was in pursuance of the recommendations of that commission that the Virginia House of Burgesses in January, 1786, adopted resolutions calling a convention of the states to meet at Annapolis, Maryland, on the first Monday of September, 1786, to consider the questions of trade and commerce that were disturbing the country. Delegates from only five states attended this convention, but that body adopted resolutions calling for another convention, at which all the states should be represented, "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations, and other important matters, might be necessary to the common interests and permanent harmony of the several states," and pursuant to that recommendation and in response to a widespread sentiment that commerce between the states should be unrestricted and that commerce with foreign nations should be regulated by the general government, the Continental Congress, that had previously opposed the movement, sanctioned and advised it, and a convention of delegates from the states met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, "to devise such pro

visions as should appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

So that it is undoubtedly and undeniably true that the proximate cause, the real and primary reason, that led to the adoption of the Constitution under which we live was the necessity for the uniform regulation of trade and commerce by some single and central authority.

Ninety years ago one of the earliest and greatest of our Chief Justices, himself an interested contemporary observer of the men who wrote the Constitution and of the events that preceded and led to its adoption (Chief Justice Marshall in Brown vs. Maryland, 12 Wheaton 419), said:

"The oppressed and degraded state of commerce previous to the adoption of the Constitution can scarcely be forgotten. It was regulated by foreign nations with an eye single to their own interests; and our disunited efforts to counteract their restrictions were rendered impotent by want of combination. Congress, indeed, possessed the power of making treaties; but the inability of the federal government to enforce them had become so apparent as to render that power in a great degree useless. Those who felt the injury arising from this state of things, and those who were capable of estimating the influence of commerce upon the prosperity of nations, perceived the necessity of giving the control over this important subject to a single government. It may be doubted whether any of the evils proceeding from the feebleness of the federal government (under the confederation) contributed more to that great revolution which introduced the present system than the deep and general conviction that commerce ought to be regulated by Congress."

At a much later date (1906), Mr. Justice Brown (Cook vs. Marshall County, 196 U. S. 261) said:

"The power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states is perhaps the most benign gift of the Constitution. Indeed, it may be said that without it the Constitution would not have been adopted. One of the chief evils of the confederation was the power exercised by the commercial states of exacting duties upon the importation of goods destined for the interior of the country or for other states. The vast territory to the west of the Alleghanies had not yet been developed or subdivided into states, but the evil had already become so flagrant that it threatened an utter dissolution of the confederacy. The Article was adopted in order that all the states might have the benefits of the duties col