Opinion of the Court. business through the local instruments to be employed after coming within the State, but directly upon the business as it comes into the State from without or goes out from within. While it purports only to control the carrier when engaged within the State, it must necessarily influence his conduct to some extent in the management of his business throughout his entire voyage. His disposition of passengers taken up and put down within the State, or taken up within to be carried without, cannot but affect in a greater or less degree those taken up without and brought within, and sometimes those taken up within and put down without. A passenger in the cabin set apart for the use of whites without the State must, when the boat comes within, share the accommodations of that cabin with such colored persons as may come on board afterwards, if the law is enforced. It was to meet just such a case that the commercial clause in the Constitution was adopted. The river Mississippi passes through or along the borders of ten different States, and its tributaries reach many more. The commerce upon these waters is immense, and its regulation clearly a matter of national concern. If each State was at liberty to regulate the conduct of carriers while within its jurisdiction, the confusion likely to follow could not but be productive of great inconvenience and unnecessary hardship. Each State could provide for its own passengers and regulate the transportation of its own freight, regardless of the interests of others. Nay, more; it could prescribe rules by which the carrier must be governed within the State, in respect to passengers and property brought from without. On one side of the river or its tributaries he might be required to observe one set of rules, and on the other another. Commerce cannot flourish in the midst of such embarrassments. No carrier of passengers can conduct his business with satisfaction to himself, or comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a state line his passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the same cabin, and on the other be kept separate. Uniformity in the regulations by which he is to be governed from one end to the other of his route is a necessity in his business, and to secure it Congress, which is Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brown, JJ. untrammelled by state lines, has been invested with the exclusive legislative power of determining what such regulations shall be."" And it was doubtless this construction which caused the court to observe in the opinion in In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, 552, that the act of Congress "divests them (objects of interstate commerce shipment) of that character at an earlier period of time than would otherwise be the case." We think that interpreting the statute by the light of all its provisions, it was not intended to and did not cause the power of the State to attach to an interstate commerce shipment, whilst the merchandise was in transit under such shipment, and until its arrival at the point of destination and delivery there to the consignee, and of course this conclusion renders it entirely unnecessary to consider whether if the act of Congress had submitted the right to make interstate commerce shipments to state control it would be repugnant to the Constitution. It follows from this conclusion that as the act for which the plaintiff in error was convicted, and which consisted in moving the goods from the platform to the freight warehouse, was a part of the interstate commerce transportation, and was done before the law of Iowa could constitutionally attach to the goods, the conviction was erroneous, and the judgment below is, therefore, Reversed. MR. JUSTICE GRAY, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE BROWN, dissenting. Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Brown and myself are constrained to dissent from this judgment, which appears to us to deny due effect to the police power, reserved to each State by the Constitution of the United States, and recognized by Congress in the act of August 8, 1890, c. 728, commonly known as the Wilson act. 26 Stat. 313. The purpose and effect of this act may be best understood by recalling the history of the law upon the subject. In order to keep this opinion within reasonable compass, Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brown, JJ. we shall, in referring to the previous decisions of this court, confine ourselves, as far as possible, to those decisions which directly relate to the traffic in intoxicating liquors. The regulation of the manufacture, sale and use of intoxicating liquors has always been recognized as a subject peculiarly appertaining to the police power of the several States respectively. License cases, 5 How. 504; Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; Foster v. Kansas, 112 U. S. 201; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1; Eilenbecker v. Plymouth County, 134 U. S. 31. Upon the question how far the police power reserved to each State over this subject is affected by the grant to Congress of the power to regulate commerce among the several States, there have been conflicting opinions, and even varying decisions, at different periods. The earliest cases which came before this court, concerning the extent of the police power of each State over intoxicating liquors within its borders, were Thurlow v. Massachusetts, Fletcher v. Rhode Island and Peirce v. New Hampshire, decided in 1847, and reported under the name of The License cases, 5 How. 504. In Peirce v. New Hampshire, a statute of New Hampshire, prohibiting sales of intoxicating liquors by any person without a license from municipal authorities, and authorizing licenses to be granted only to persons residing within the State, was held by all the justices to be constitutional and valid, as applied to a barrel of intoxicating liquors, brought into New Hampshire from another State, and sold in New Hampshire by the importer, in the same barrel, unbroken and in the same condition in which it had been brought in there having been no legislation of Congress upon the subject. That decision was afterwards repeatedly cited with approval. Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 730; Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25, 33; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 701; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 657, 658. And in several cases the validity of statutes of a State, taxing the sale of intoxicating liquors brought from another State, was し Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brown, JJ. treated as depending upon the question whether the statutes made any discrimination in favor of liquors manufactured within the State. Hinson v. Lott, 8 Wall. 148; Tiernan v. Rinker, 102 U. S. 123; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 460. The question whether the power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States is exclusive, or only paramount, was a subject of much diversity of opinion from an early period until 1851, when this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Curtis, in Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, laid down this principle: When the nature of the particular subject in question is such as to demand a single uniform rule, operating equally throughout the United States, the power of Congress is exclusive; but when the subject is of such a nature as to require different systems of regulation, drawn from local knowledge or experience, and conformed to local wants, it may be the subject of state legislation so long as Congress has not legislated. 12 How. 319, 320. The principle there laid down has become fully recog nized and established in our jurisprudence. Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U. S. 691, 704; Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 42; Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, 701. Wherever, from the nature of the subject, the power of Congress to regulate commerce is exclusive, the several States, of course, cannot legislate, even if there has been no legislation by Congress; or, as the proposition has been stated in another form, "where the power of Congress to regulate is exclusive, the failure of Congress to make express regulations indicates its will that the subject shall be left free from any restrictions or impositions; and any regulation of the subject by the States, except in matters of local concern only, is repugnant to such freedom." Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, 493. The theory that the bringing of intoxicating liquors from one State into another, and the selling of them there in the packages in which they had been introduced, are subjects requiring to be regulated by a national and uniform rule, and therefore within the exclusive power of Congress, and wholly Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Harlan, Brown, JJ. free from state legislation, was not broached by any member of the court before the cases of Bowman v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 125 U. S. 465, and Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100. In Bowman's case Chief Justice Waite and two other justices dissented, and in Leisy's case three justices dissented; and the reasons for and against the decisions were stated at length in the opinions delivered in those cases. It will be sufficient, for our present purpose, to state the points there decided. Each of those cases arose under the statutes of the State of Iowa, regulating the manufacture, the sale and the transportation of intoxicating liquors within the State. Bowman v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, decided by this court March 19, 1888, involved the validity of a provision of those statutes, (substantially similar to the provision now before us, as construed by the highest court of the State,) imposing a penalty upon any railroad company or other common carrier, or any agent of either, or any other person, that should knowingly bring within the State, or knowingly transport or convey between points or from one place to another within the State, for any other person or corporation, any intoxicating liquors, without first having obtained a certificate, from the auditor of the county to which it was consigned, or within which it was to be conveyed from place to place, certifying that the consignee was authorized by the laws of Iowa to sell such liquors. The majority of this court, upon a consideration of the whole statute, frankly recognized that "the provision in question has been adopted by the State of Iowa, not expressly for the purpose of regulating commerce between its citizens and those of other States, but as subservient to the general design of protecting the health and morals of its people and the peace and good order of the State, against the physical and moral evils resulting from the unrestricted manufacture and sale within the State of intoxicating liquors." 125 U. S. 475, 476. Nevertheless, the provision was held to be unconstitutional and void, as applied to a railroad company transporting intoxicating liquors into the State from another |