Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce Commingling of Interstate and Intrastate Transactions The authority of Congress extends to every part of interstate commerce and to every instrumentality or agency by which it is carried on, and the full control by Congress of the subjects committed to its regulation is not to be denied or thwarted by the commingling of interstate and intrastate operations. This is not to say that the Nation may deal with the internal concerns of the State, as such, but that the execution by Congress of its constitutional power is not limited by the fact that intrastate transactions may have become so interwoven therewith that the effective government of the former incidentally controls the latter. This conclusion necessarily results from the supremacy of the national power within its appointed sphere. Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352. To Provide Review of Action of Commission Congress may provide for the review of the action of commissions or boards created by it exercising quasi judicial powers for the transfer of their proceedings and decisions to judicial tribunals for determination de novo. In an action brought upon a reparation order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, its findings and orders are prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated, and the conclusions of the commission on questions of fact are not reviewable by the courts. Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445. An order of the commission is not invalidated by the mere admission as evidence of matter which in judicial proceedings would be incompetent. But a finding without evidence is beyond the power of the commission. Reports of carriers on the commission's files can not be treated as evidence when not introduced as such in a proceeding which, though initiated by the commission primarily to protect the public interest, may result in an order in favor of one carrier as against another. U. S. v. Abilene & So. Ry. Co., 265 U. S. 274. To Enact Criminal Laws The power to regulate commerce includes the power to regulate navigation, as connected with the commerce with foreign nations and among the States. It does not stop at the mere boundary line of a State; nor is it confined to acts done on the water or in the necessary course of the navigation thereof. It extends to such acts, done on land, which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent the due exercise of the power to regulate commerce and navigation with foreign nations and among the States. Any offense which thus interferes with, obstructs, or prevents such commerce and navigation, though done on land, Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce may be punished by Congress, under its general authority to make all laws necessary and proper to execute their delegated constitutional powers. U. S. v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 78. To Grant Franchises Under this clause Congress has authority to grant franchises authorizing corporations to construct national highways and bridges from State to State. California v. Central Pac. R. Co., 127 U. S. 39. Over Railroad Ferries The inclusion of railroad ferries in the interstate commerce act is such an extension of the Federal authority over ferries upon a navigable river forming the boundary between two States as to invalidate any regulation under State authority of the rates to be charged for the interstate ferriage of persons, although such regulation relates only to persons other than railroad passengers. New York Cent., etc., R. Co. v. Hudson County, 227 U. S. 248. Over Bridges Across Navigable Streams When Congress declares a bridge across a navigable river of the United States to be an unlawful structure, no legislation of a State can make it lawful. The States may authorize all structures over navigable waters which may either impede or improve navigation, in the absence of Federal legislation, but when Congress has legislated its action is conclusive. The Federal laws for the enrollment and licensing of coasting vessels are such as prohibit a State from impeding navigation by the erection of a bridge. Bridge Co. v. U. S., 105 U. S. 475. Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1. Pound v. Turck, 95 U. S. 459. Wisconsin v. Duluth, 96 U. S. 379. Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678. Monongahela Brdg. v. U. S., 216 U. S. 177. Luxton v. North River Brdg. Co., 153 U. S. 530. Pennsylvania v. Wheeling, etc., Brdg. Co., 18 How. 429. Union Brdg. Co. v. U. S., 204 U. S. 364. Clinton Bridge, 10 Wall. 462. Over Railroads By virtue of its power to regulate commerce Congress may enact laws for the safeguarding of the persons and property that are transported (by railroad) in that commerce and of those who are employed in transporting them; may authorize the construction of railroads; may grant rights of way; may legislate as to rates and charges; prevent discrimination in rates; may abrogate free passes given by a railroad in compromise of a claim for damages, etc. Baltimore, etc., R. Co. v. I. C. C., 221 U. S. 612. Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas R. Co., 135 U. S. 642. Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress I. C. C. v. Detroit, etc., R. Co., 67 U. S. 642. Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467. Cl. 3.-Commerce Congress may prohibit interstate carriers from discriminating against localities to which they bill traffic, though not reached by their own lines. St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. U. S., 245 U. S. 136. In Central R. Co. v. U. S., 257 U. S. 247, the court said: "What Congress sought to prevent by that section (sec. 3 of interstate commerce act) * was not differences between *but unjust discrimi localities in transportation rates, Over Contracts Interstate commerce which is subject to the control of Congress embraces the widest freedom, including, as a matter of course, the right to make all contracts having a proper relation to the subject. Rosenberger v. Pacific Exp. Co., 241 U. S. 48. Richmond, etc., R. Co. v. Patterson, 169 U. S. 311. The Carmack amendment to the interstate commerce act supersedes State statutes invalidating contracts limiting recovery for loss or injury to goods in transportation to an agreed or declared value. Atchison, etc., R. Co. v. Harold, 241 U. S. 371. Atchison, etc., R. Co. v. Robinson, 233 U. S. 173. The power to regulate commerce was vested in Congress in order to secure equality and freedom in commercial intercourse against discriminating State legislation; it was never intended that the power should be exercised so as to interfere with private contracts not designed at the time they were made to create impediments to such intercourse. Railroad Co. v. Richmond, 19 Wall. 588. Where a contract affects interstate commerce only incidentally and not directly, the fact that it was not designed or intended to affect such commerce is simply an additional reason for holding the contract valid and not touched by an act of Congress. Otherwise, the design prompting the execution of a contract pertaining to and directly affecting, and more or less regulating, interstate commerce is of no importance. Addyston Pipe, etc., Co. v. U. S., 175 U. S. 234. Congress has the power, with regard to interstate commerce and in the course of regulating it in the case of railroad corpora Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Cl. 3.-Commerce tions, to say that no contract or combination shall be legal which shall restrain trade and commerce by shutting out the operation of the general law of competition. U. S. v. Joint Traffic Assn., 171 U. S. 569. Contracts, combinations, or conspiracies to control domestic enterprise in manufacture, agriculture, mining, production in all its forms, or to raise or lower the prices or wages, might unquestionably tend to restrain external as well as domestic trade, but the restraint would be an indirect result, however inevitable and whatever its extent, and such result would not necessarily determine the object of the contract, combination, or conspiracy. U. S. v. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 16. Over Rules by Which Commerce Shall Be Governed Congress has the power to establish rules by which interstate and international commerce shall be governed, and, by the antitrust act, has prescribed the rule of free competition among those engaged in such commerce. Northern Securities Co. v. U. S. (193 U. S. 337), in which the court said: Whether the free operation of the normal laws of competition is a wise and wholesome rule for trade and commerce is an economic question which this court need not consider or determine. Undoubtedly there are those who think that the general business interests and prosperity of the country will be best promoted if the rule of competition is not applied. But there are others who believe that such a rule is more necessary in these days of enormous wealth than it ever was. * * Congress has in effect recognized the rule of free competition by declaring illegal every combination or conspiracy in restraint of interstate and international commerce. in the judgment of Congress the public convenience and the general welfare will be best subserved when the natural laws of competition are left undisturbed by those engaged in interstate commerce, and as Congress has embodied that rule in a statute, that must be for all the end of the matter, if this is to remain a government of laws and not of men. As It was held in U. S. v. Coffee Exchange, 263 U. S. 611, that— Sales of a commodity upon an exchange, under contracts calling for actual delivery in the future but which in practice are cleared by the processes called "matching" and "ringing," serve useful and legitimate purposes, and are legal when not abused for illegal ends, and that Congress has the power to provide rules and regulations for the conduct of such exchanges to prevent abuse of their lawful functions. Over Safety Appliances Congress having determined to regulate the use of cars running on interstate railroads so as to provide for the use of certain safety appliances on such cars, has by such acts taken jurisdiction thereof. Southern R. Co. v. U. S., 222 U. S. 20. Missouri, etc., R. Co. v. Castle, 224 U. S. 541. Texas, etc., R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33. Sec. 8.-Powers of Congress Over Hours of Service Cl. 3.-Commerce Congress has so acted upon the subject as to preclude a State from making or enforcing as to interstate employees a local regulation limiting hours of labor. Northern Pac. R. Co. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 370. Erie R. Co. v. New York, 233 U. S. 671. Baltimore, etc., R. Co. v. I. C. C., 221 U. S. 612. Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332. Ellis v. U. S., 206 U. S. 246. U. S. v. Garbish, 222 U. S. 257. Missouri, etc., R. Co. v. U. S., 231 U. S. 112. Over Liability for Injuries to Employees The laws of the several States, in so far as they cover the same field, were superseded by the employers' liability act, but the original act of June 11, 1906, was held invalid as being a regulation of intrastate as well as of interstate commerce in Employers' Liability cases (207 U. S. 463). It had been held valid in Lancer v. Anchor Line (155 Fed. 433); Kelley v. Great Northern R. Co. (152 Fed. 211); Plummer v. Northern Pac. R. Co. (152 Fed. 206); and Spain v. St. Louis, etc., R. Co. (151 Fed. 522). In the exertion of its power over interstate commerce Congress may regulate the relations of common carriers and their employees while both are engaged in such commerce, subject to the limitations prescribed in the Constitution and to the qualification that the particulars in which those relations are regulated must have a real or substantial connection with the interstate commerce in which the carriers and their employees are engaged. Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1. St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. Seale, 229 U. S. 156. Pedersen v. Delaware, etc., R. Co., 229 U. S. 146. The act of 1906 was held valid and enforceable as to carriers and their employees within the District of Columbia and the Territories, in El Paso, etc., R. Co. v. Gutierrez (215 U. S. 87). The liability acts were held to be limited to common carriers "by railroad" and not applicable to independent steamship lines, in Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen (244 U. S. 205). The section of the act of 1908, declaring any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any carrier to exempt itself from liability created by the act, to be void, is valid. Philadelphia, etc., R. Co. v. Schubert, 224 U. S. 603. In connection with the Second Employers' Liability Cases see also St. Louis, etc., R. Co. v. Hesterly, 228 U. S. 702. Delaware, etc., R. Co. v. Yurkonis, 238 U. S. 439. |