only as a means of transportation, now largely superseded by railroads, he says: "The power of Congress, then, comprehends navigation within the limits of every State in the Union, so far as that navigation may be, in any manner, connected with commerce with foreign nations, or among the several States, or with the Indian tribes.' It may, of consequence, pass the jurisdictional line of New York and act upon the very waters (the Hudson River) to which the prohibition now under consideration applies" (p. 197). So the same power may pass the line of the State of Illinois and act upon its restriction upon the right of transportation extending over several States, including that one. all In the case of Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, the court held that "a telegraph company occupies the same relation to commerce as a carrier of messages that a railroad company does as a carrier of goods," and that "both companies are instruments of commerce, and their business is commerce itself." And relying upon the case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232, already referred to, the court said that a tax by the State of Texas upon messages carried within its borders was forbidden by the commerce clause of the Constitution, as being a tax upon commerce among the States; and observed that "the tax is the same on every message sent, and because it is sent, without regard to the distance carried or the price charged. . . . Clearly, if a fixed tax for two thousand pounds of freight carried is a tax on the freight, or for every measured ton of a vesssel a tax on tonnage, or for every passenger carried, a tax on the passenger, or for the sale of goods a tax on the goods, this must be a tax on the messages. As such, so far as it operates on private messages sent out of the State, it is a regulation of foreign and interstate commerce and beyond the power of the State. That is fully established by the cases already cited." every In the case of Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275, it was said: "It will not be denied that that portion of commerce with foreign countries and between the States which consists in the transportation and exchange of commodities is of natural importance, and admits and requires uniformity of regulation. The very object of investing this power in the general government was to insure this uniformity against discriminating State legislation." And in County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, the same idea is very clearly stated in the following language: "Commerce with foreign countries and among the States, strictly considered, consists in intercourse and traffic, including in these terms navigation and the transportation and transit of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities. For the regulation of commerce as thus defined there can be only one system of rules, applicable alike to the whole country; and the authority which can act for the whole country can alone adopt such a system. Action upon it by separate States is not, therefore, permissible. Language affirming the exclusiveness of the grant of power over commerce as thus defined may not be inaccurate, when it would be so if applied to legislation upon subjects which are merely auxiliary In the case of Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 Ú. S. 204; s. c., 13 Am. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 365, decided two years ago, the court declared without dissent that "it needs no argument to show that the commerce with foreign nations and between the States, which consists in the transportation of persons and property between them, is a subject of national character and requires uniformity of regulation.' And still later, in the case of Pickard v. Pullman Southern Car Co., 117 U. S. 34, the whole subject is very fully re-examined; and a tax of the State of Tennessee upon sleeping-cars of that company, which were used in carrying passengers through the State, and into it and out of it, was held void as a regulation of commerce among the States. The case of Stone v. The Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307; s. c., 23 Am. & Eng. R. R. Cas. 577, argued at the same term as the present, while it does not decide the latter, evidently does not support the construction placed by the Supreme Court of Illinois upon the case of Munn v. Illinois, and the other cases on which the court relies. We must, therefore hold that it is not, and never has been, the deliberate opinion of a majority of this court that a statute of a State which attempts to regulate the fares and charges by railroad companies within its limits, for a transportation which constitutes a part of commerce among the States, is a valid law. FERENCE WITH INTERSTATE COM SULT FROM THE IT OF THE ILLI WILL RE APPLICATION TO NOIS RAILWAY ERED. Let us see precisely what is the degree of interference with transportation of property or persons from one State to another which this statute proposes. A citizen of New York WHAT INTER. has goods which he desires to have transported by the railroad companies from that city to the interior of the State of Illinois. A continuous line of rail over which a car loaded with these goods can be carried, and is carried habitually, connects the place of shipment with the place of delivery. He undertakes to make a contract with a person engaged in the carrying business at the end of this route from whence the goods are to start, and he is told by the carrier, "I am free to make a fair and reasonable contract for this carriage to the line of the State of Illinois; but when the car which carries these goods is to cross the line of that State, pursuing at the same time this con. tinuous track, I am met by a law of Illinois which forbids me to make a free contract concerning this transportation within that State, and subjects me to certain rules by which I am to be gov. erned as to the charges which the same railroad company in Illinois may make, or has made, with reference to other persons and other places of delivery." So that while that carrier might be willing to carry these goods from the city of New York to the city of Peoria at the rate of fifteen cents per hundred pounds, he is not permitted to do so because the Illinois railroad company has already charged at the rate of twenty-five cents per hundred pounds for carriage to Gilman, in Illinois, which is eighty-six miles shorter than the distance to Peoria. So, also, in the present case, the owner of corn, the principal product of the country, desiring to transport it from Peoria, in Illinois, to New York, finds a railroad company willing to do this at the rate of fifteen cents per hundred pounds for a car-load, but is compelled to pay at the rate of twenty-five cents per hundred pounds, because the railroad company has received from a person residing at Gilman twenty-five cents per hundred pounds for the transportation of a car-load of the same class of freight over the same line of road from Gilman to New York. This is the result of the statute of Illinois, in its endeavor to present unjust discrimination, as construed by the Supreme Court of that State. The effect of it is, that whatever may be the rate of transportation per mile charged by the railroad company from Gilman to Sheldon, a distance of twenty-three miles, in which the loading and the unloading of the freight are the largest expense incurred by the railroad company, the same rate per mile must charged from Peoria to the city of New York. The obvious injustice of such a rule as this, which railroad companies are by heavy penalties compelled to conform to, in regard to commerce among the States, when applied to transportation which includes Illinois in a long line of carriage through several States, shows the value of the constitutional provision which confides the power of regulating interstate commerce to the Congress of the United States, whose enlarged view of the interests of all the States, and of the railroads concerned, better fits it to establish just and equitable rules. INTERSTATE EXCLUSIVELY. Of the justice or propriety of the principle which lies at the foundation of the Illinois statute it is not the province of this court to speak. As restricted to a transportation which begins and ends within the limits of the State it may be very just and equitable, and it certainly is the province of the State legislature to determine that question. But when it is attempted to apply to transportation through an entire series of States a principle of this kind, and each one of the States shall attempt to establish its own rates of transportation, its own methods to prevent discrimination in rates, or to permit it, the deleterious influence upon the freedom of commerce among the States and upon the transit of goods through those States cannot be over-estimated. That this species of regulation is one which must be, if established at all, of a general and national character, and cannot be safely and wisely remitted to local rules and local regulations, we think is clear from what has already been said. And if it be a regulation of commerce, as we think we have demonstrated it is, and as the Illinois court concedes it to be, it must be of that national character, and the regulation can only appropriately exist by general rules and principles, which demand that it should be done by the Congress of the United States under the commerce clause of the Constitution. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is therefore reversed, and the case remanded to that court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion. BRADLEY, J., dissenting.-The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Gray, and myself dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court in this case, and I am authorized to state the reasons upon which our dissent is founded. FACTS. The Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific R. Co., an Illinois corporation, plaintiff in error, was sued by the State of Illinois to recover a penalty for the breach of its laws, passed" to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in the rates charged for the transportation of passengers and freight on railroads in the State." The law sued on was originally passed in 1871, and revised in 1873, and the material portions of its most important section are in the following words, to wit: "If any such railroad corporation shall charge, collect, or receive for the transportation of any passenger or freight of any description, upon its railroad, for any distance, within this State, the same or a greater amount of toll or compensation than is at the same time. charged, collected, or received for the transportation, in the same direction, of any passenger or like quantity of freight, of the same class, over a greater distance of the same railroad; . . . or if it shall charge, collect, or receive from any person or persons, for the use and transportation of any railroad car or cars upon its railroad, for any distance, the same or a greater amount of toll or compensation than it at the same time charged, collected, or received from any other person or persons, for the use and transportation of any railroad car of the same class or number, for a like purpose, being transported in the same direction, over a greater distance of the same railroad; . . . all such discriminating rates, charges, collections, or receipts, whether made directly or by means of rebate, drawback, or other shift or evasion, shall be deemed and taken, against any such railroad corporation, as prima facie evidence of unjust discrimination, prohibited by the provisions of this act; .. Provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to prevent railroad corporations from issuing commutation, excursion, or thousand-mile tickets, as the same are now issued by such corporations." A penalty of not less than $1000 and not more than $5000 for the first offence is imposed for the violation of the law; and it was for this penalty that the company was sued in the Ford County Circuit Court. The declaration alleged, in substance, that the company charged certain parties fifteen cents per hundred pounds for carrying a load of freight from Peoria, in the State of Illinois, to New York, 109 miles of the distance being in Illinois, whilst at the same time it charged certain other parties twenty-five cents per hundred pounds for carrying a like load of the same class of freight from Gilman, also in the State of Illinois, to New York, 23 miles of the distance being in Illinois, both places being on the line of the road. This allegation was substantially admitted, and judgment was finally rendered in favor of the State, and was sustained by the Supreme Court of the State, to which the present writ of error was directed. The main point insisted on by the railway company in its defence was, that the law on which the action was founded is unconstitutional in its application to their case, as being a regulation of interstate commerce. They also contended that a gross charge from Peoria or Gilman to New York was no evidence of any particular charge within the State of Illinois. The construction given to the law by the Supreme Court of Illinois is to be received by us, on a writ of error brought for the purpose of questioning its constitutionality. That construction is clearly exhibited in the following announcement of the opinion of that court when the case was brought before it a second time. The court says: "We see no reason to depart from the conclusion reached in this case when it was here before. (See People v. W., St. L. & P. R. Co., 104 Ill. 476.) But to avoid misapprehension, we deem it desirable to state explicitly that we disclaim any idea that Illinois has authority to regulate commerce in any other State. We understand and simply hold that, in the absence of anything showing to the contrary, a single and entire contract to carry for a gross sum from Gilman, in this State, to the city of New York, implies necessarily that that sum is charged proportionately for the carriage on every part of that distance; and that a single and entire contract to carry for a gross sum from Peoria, in this State, to the city of New York, implies the same thing; and that, therefore, when it is shown that there is charged for carriage upon the same line less from Peoria to New York (the greater distance) than from Gilman to New York (the less distance), and nothing is shown to the effect that such inequality in charge is all for carriage entirely beyond the limits of this State, a prima-facie case is made out of unjust discrimination under our statute occurring within this State. We hold that the excess in the charge for the less distance pre |