effect of the words employed, and they are, therefore, to be given their natural and ordinary signification. Read in this way, the grant evidently extends to the public domain, the military and post roads, and the navigable waters of the United States. These are all within the dominion of the National Government to the extent of the national powers, and are, therefore, subject to legitimate congressional regulation. No question arises as to the authority of Congress to provide for the appropriation of private property to the uses of the telegraph, for no such attempt has been made. The use of public property alone is granted. If private property is required, it must, so far as the present legislation is concerned, be obtained by private arrangement with its owner. No compulsory proceedings are authorized. State sovereignty under the Constitution is not interfered with. Only national privileges are granted.

The State law in question, so far as it confers exclusive rights upon the Pensacola Company, is certainly in conflict with this legislation of Congress. To that extent it is, therefore, inoperative as against a corporation of another State entitled to the privileges of the Act of Congress. Such being the case, the charter of the Pensacola Company does not exclude the Western Union Company from the occupancy of the right of way of the Pensacola and Louisville Railroad Company under the arrangement made for that pur

pose.

We are aware that, in Paul v. Virginia (8 Wall. 168), this court decided that a State might exclude a corporation of another State from its jurisdiction, and that corporations are not within the clause of the Constitution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Art. 4, Sect. 2. That was not, however, the case of a corporation engaged in interstate commerce; and enough was said by the court to show, that, if it had been, very different questions would have been presented. *

The question thus suggested need not be considered now, because no prohibitory legislation is relied upon, except that which, as has already been seen, is inoperative. Upon principles of comity, the corporations of one State are permitted to do business in another, unless it conflicts with the law, or unjustly interferes with the rights of the citizens of the State into which they come. Under such circumstances, no citizen of a State can enjoin a foreign corporation from pursuing its business. Until the State acts in its sovereign capacity, individual citizens cannot complain. The State must determine for itself when the public good requires that its implied assent to the admission shall be withdrawn. Here, so far from

withdrawing its assent, the State, by its legislation of 1874, in effect, invited foreign telegraph corporations to come in. Whether that legislation, in the absence of congressional action, would have been sufficient to authorize a foreign corporation to construct and operate a line within the two counties named, we need not decide; but we are clearly of the opinion, that, with such action and a right of way secured by private arrangement with the owner of the land, this defendant corporation cannot be excluded by the present complainant.

Decree affirmed.

IN RE JACKSON

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT (1878)

96 U. S. 727, 732; 24 L. Ed. 877.

Congress may regulate the location and conduct of the postal system and determine what may be carried in, and what may be excluded from, the mails.

Part of opinion is omitted.

Mr. Justice FIELD: The power vested in Congress "to establish post-offices and post-roads" has been practically construed, since the foundation of the government, to authorize not merely the designation of the routes over which mail shall be carried, and the offices where letters and other documents shall be received to be distributed or forwarded, but the carriage of the mail, and all measures necessary to secure its safe and speedy transit, and the prompt delivery of its contents. The validity of legislation prescribing what should be carried, and its weight and form, and the charges to which it should be subjected, has never been questioned. What should be mailable has varied at different times, changing with the facility of transportation over the post-roads. At one time, only letters, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and other printed matter, not exceeding eight ounces in weight, were carried; afterwards books were added to the list; and now small packages of merchandise, not exceeding a prescribed weight, as well as books and printed matter of all kinds, are transported in the mail. The power possessed by Congress embraces the regulation of the entire postal system of the country. The right to designate what shall be carried necessarily involves the right to determine what shall be excluded.

*

EX PARTE RAPIER

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT (1892)

143 U. S. 110, 132; 36 L. Ed. 93.

Congress may deny the facilities of the mails for distributing matter deemed by it injurious to public morals.

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER: We are constrained by the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed by the illness and death of Mr. Justice BRADLEY, to whom the preparation of the opinion in these cases was committed, to waive any elaboration of our views, and confine ourselves to the expression of the general grounds on which our decision proceeds.

These are applications for discharge by writ of habeas corpus from arrest for alleged violations of an act of Congress, approved September 19, 1890, entitled "An act to amend certain sections of the Revised Statutes relating to lotteries, and for other purposes." 26 St. 465, c. 908.

The question for determination relates to the constitutionality of Section 3894 of the Revised Statutes as amended by that act. In Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, it was held that the power vested in Congress to establish post-offices and post-roads embraced the regulation of the entire postal system of the country, and that under it Congress may designate what may be carried in the mail and what excluded; that in excluding various articles from the mails the object of Congress is not to interfere with the freedom of the press or with any other rights of the people, but to refuse the facilities for the distribution of matter deemed injurious by Congress to the public morals; and that the transportation in any other way of matters excluded from the mails would not be forbidden. Unless we are prepared to overrule that decision, it is decisive of the question before us.

It is argued that in Jackson's case it was not urged that Congress had no power to exclude lottery matter from the mails; but it is conceded that the point of want of power was passed upon in the opinion. This was necessarily so, for the real question was the existence of the power and not the defective exercise of it. And it is a mistake to suppose that the conclusion there expressed was arrived at without deliberate consideration. It is insisted that the express powers of Congress are limited in their exercise to the

objects for which they were entrusted, and that in order to justify Congress in exercising any incidental or implied powers to carry into effect its express authority, it must appear that there is some relation between the means employed and the legitimate end. This is true, but while the legitimate end of the exercise of the power in question is to furnish mail facilities for the people of the United States, it is also true that mail facilities are not required to be furnished for every purpose.

The States, before the Union was formed, could establish postoffices and post-roads, and in doing so could bring into play the police power in the protection of their citizens from the use of the means so provided for purposes supposed to exert a demoralizing influence upon the people. When the power to establish post-offices and post-roads was surrendered to the Congress it was as a complete power, and the grant carried with it the right to exercise all the powers which made that power effective. It is not necessary that Congress should have the power to deal with crime or immorality within the States in order to maintain that it possesses the power to forbid the use of the mails in aid of the perpetration of crime or immorality.

The argument that there is a distinction between mala prohibita and mala in se, and that Congress might forbid the use of the mails in promotion of such acts as are universally regarded as mala in se, including all such crimes as murder, arson, burglary, etc., and the offense of circulating obscene books and papers, but cannot do so in respect of other matters which it might regard as criminal or immoral, but which it has no power itself to prohibit, involves a concession which is fatal to the contention of petitioners, since it would be for Congress to determine what are within and what without the rule; but we think there is no room for such a distinction here, and that it must be left to Congress in the exercise of a sound discretion to determine in what manner it will exercise the power it undoubtedly possesses.

We cannot regard the right to operate a lottery as a fundamental right infringed by the legislation in question; nor are we able to see that Congress can be held, in its enactment, to have abridged the freedom of the press. The circulation of newspapers is not prohibited, but the government declines itself to become an agent in the circulation of printed matter which it regards as injurious to the people. The freedom of communication is not abridged within the intent and meaning of the constitutional provision, unless Congress is absolutely destitute of any discretion as to what shall or

shall not be carried in the mails, and compelled arbitrarily to assist in the dissemination of matters condemned by its judgment through the governmental agencies which it controls. That power may be abused furnishes no ground for a denial of its existence, if government is to be maintained at all.

In short, we do not find sufficient grounds in the arguments of counsel, able and exhaustive as they have been, to induce us to change the views already expressed in the case to which we have referred. We adhere to the conclusion therein announced.

The writs of habeas corpus prayed for will therefore be denied, and the rules hereinbefore entered discharged.

LYNCH v. BOSTON AND MAINE R. R. CO. (1917)

227 Mass. 123; 116 N. E. 401, 402.

The transportation of United States mail held to be commerce.

Part of opinion only is given.

CROSBY J. It cannot be doubted that the transportation of mail stands upon the same footing as the transportation of freight, baggage or other commodities. It is common knowledge that railroad companies carry mail under contracts entered into with the Federal Government authorized by statute and that such transportation is paid for in accordance with the terms of such contracts. The fact that the carriage is for the Federal government does not stand different than if the service is rendered to an individual. Such mail service is a part of the regular business of railroads from which they derive a substantial revenue. It has been held that the transportation of lottery tickets is interstate commerce. Champion v. Ames, 188 U. S. 321; so also; the transmission of intelligence by electricity is interstate commerce, Pensacola Teleg. Co. v. Western Union Teleg. Co., 96 U. S. 1; the transmission of messages by wireless is declared to be interstate commerce. Marconi Wireless Teleg. Co. v. Com., 218 Mass. 558, 567, 568; the transmission of information through the mails by correspondence schools is commerce between the States within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. International Textbook Co. v. Pigg, 217 U. S. 91. * **

See Southern Pacific Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 174 Cal. 8, 16, 19.