Argument for the United States. exclude importations of a certain kind from other States, and their legislation has been held by this court to be unconstitutional. Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313; Brimmer v. Rebman, 136 U. S. 78; Voight v. Wright, 141 U. S. 62. These laws were not held to be void, because they in effect levied taxes upon imports; for it is well settled that the word "imports" in the Constitution refers only to articles brought in from foreign countries. License Cases, 5 How. 504, 623; Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622, 628; Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 526; Pittsburg Co. v. Louisiana, 156 U. S. 590, 600. The laws were held void because they were regulations of commerce. But the Constitution does not expressly prohibit States from regulating commerce. It merely gives the power of regulation to Congress. Whenever, therefore, this court has held a state law void as being a regulation of commerce, it has impliedly held that a law to the same effect could constitutionally be passed by Congress; that is, so far as Congress is not restrained by some express prohibition. The legislative history of the United States gives many instances of prohibitory regulations of trade, none of which, to my knowledge, has ever been declared unconstitutional. Reference has already been made to the embargo acts and the prohibitions of trade with the Indians. The exclusion of aliens has already been discussed, and the identity of foreign and interstate commerce established by decisions of this court. 5. In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, evidences very strongly the power of Congress to prohibit interstate trade. The act of August 8, 1890, was passed by Congress with the full knowledge that in certain States of the Union the manufacture and sale of a recognized article of commerce was absolutely prohibited. Disregarding the mere form of words, and looking to the substance of this act, in connection with state legislation, it was a virtual prohibition of transportation to that State. It is obvious that the power to pass such a law could not depend in any wise upon the state statute, but must be inherent in Congress, and therefore an absolute prohibition of transportation would have been valid if there had been no state statute. This court Opinion of the Court. held the virtual prohibition of the transportation of liquors to certain States a valid exercise of constitutional power. In this connection it is well to remember that the lottery act was not passed to conflict with or trespass upon the police powers of the State. Just as the Wilson Act, which was sustained in In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, was designed to make effective the police statutes of the State where prohibitory liquor laws were in force, this act of Congress was obviously intended to remove an obstruction which the channels of interstate trade presented to the various States in their attempt to suppress the lottery traffic. Steam and electricity have woven the American people into a closeness of life of which the framers of the Constitution never dreamed, and the necessity for Federal police regulations as to any matter within the Federal sphere of power becomes increasingly apparent. The constitutionality of arbitrary prohibitions can be discussed when such a case arises, and as yet no such case has arisen, but a reasonable and proper prohibition of immoral or unsafe trade through the channels of interstate commerce is a police power which belongs to the Republic as the sovereign authority over interstate trade. Such police power must exist somewhere as to interstate trade. It cannot be nonexistent. Obviously it does not exist in the States; therefore it must exist in the Federal government, and there is nothing in the legislative or judicial history of the country that in any manner gainsays this conclusion. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, after making the foregoing statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court. The appellant insists that the carrying of lottery tickets from one State to another State by an express company engaged in carrying freight and packages from State to State, although such tickets may be contained in a box or package, does not constitute, and cannot by any act of Congress be legally made. to constitute, commerce among the States within the meaning of the clause of the Constitution of the United States providing that Congress shall have power "to regulate commerce with Opinion of the Court. foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;" consequently, that Congress cannot make it an offence to cause such tickets to be carried from one State to another. The Government insists that express companies when engaged, for hire, in the business of transportation from one State to another, are instrumentalities of commerce among the States; that the carrying of lottery tickets from one State to another is commerce which Congress may regulate; and that as a means of executing the power to regulate interstate commerce Congress may make it an offence against the United States to cause lottery tickets to be carried from one State to another. The questions presented by these opposing contentions are of great moment, and are entitled to receive, as they have received, the most careful consideration. What is the import of the word "commerce" as used in the Constitution? It is not defined by that instrument. Undoubtedly, the carrying from one State to another by independent carriers of things or commodities that are ordinary subjects of traffic, and which have in themselves a recognized value in money, constitutes interstate commerce. But does not commerce among the several States include something more? Does not the carrying from one State to another, by independent carriers, of lottery tickets that entitle the holder to the payment of a certain amount of money therein specified also constitute commerce among the States? It is contended by the parties that these questions are answered in the former decisions of this court, the Government insisting that the principles heretofore announced support its position, while the contrary is confidently asserted by the appellant. This makes it necessary to ascertain the import of such decisions. Upon that inquiry we now enter, premising that some propositions were advanced in argument that need not be considered. In the examination of former judgments it will be best to look at them somewhat in the order in which they were rendered. When prior adjudications have been thus collated the particular grounds upon which the judgment in the present case must necessarily rest can be readily determined. We may Opinion of the Court. here remark that some of the cases referred to may not bear directly upon the questions necessary to be decided, but attention will be directed to them as throwing light upon the general inquiry as to the meaning and scope of the commerce clause of the Constitution. The leading case under the commerce clause of the Constitution is Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 189, 194. Referring to that clause, Chief Justice Marshall said: "The subject to be regulated is commerce; and our Constitution being, as was aptly said at the bar, one of enumeration, and not of definition, to ascertain the extent of the power, it becomes necessary to settle the meaning of the word. The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation. This would restrict a general term, applicable to many objects, to one of its significations. Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more; it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse. . . It has been truly said, that commerce, as the word is used in the Constitution, is a unit, every part of which is indicated by the term. If this be the admitted meaning of the word, in its application to foreign nations, it must carry the same meaning throughout the sentence, and remain a unit, unless there be some plain intelligible cause which alters it. The subject to which the power is next applied, is to commerce, among the several States.' The word among' means intermingled with. A thing which is among others is intermingled with them. Commerce among the States cannot stop at the external boundary line of each State, but may be introduced into the interior. It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce, which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a power would be inconvenient and is certainly unnecessary. Comprehensive as the word 'among' is, it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one. Opinion of the Court. The genius and character of the whole Government seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the Nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally; but not to those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the Government. Again: "We are now arrived at the inquiry-what is this power? It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the Constitution. These are expressed in plain terms, and do not affect the questions which arise in this case, or which have been discussed at the bar. If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Justice Johnson, in the same case, expressed his entire approbation of the judgment rendered by the court, but delivered a separate opinion indicating the precise grounds upon which his conclusion rested. Referring to the grant of power over commerce, he said: "My opinion is founded on the application of the words of the grant to the subject of it. The power to regulate commerce,' here meant to be granted, was that power to regulate commerce which previously existed in the States. But what was that power? The States were, unquestionably, supreme; and each possessed that power over commerce, which is acknowledged to reside in every sovereign State. law of nations, regarding man as a social animal, pronounces all commerce legitimate, in a state of peace, until prohibited by positive law. The power of a sovereign State over commerce, therefore, amounts to nothing more than a power to limit and restrain it at pleasure. And since the power to pre The |