Opinion of the Court. In 1886 the legislature of the State of Iowa passed an act forbidding any common carrier from bringing within that State, for any person or corporation, any intoxicating liquors from any other State or Territory of the United States, without first having been furnished with a certificate, under the seal of the county auditor of the county to which said liquor was to be transported or was consigned for transportation, certifying that the consignee or person to whom said liquor was to be transported, conveyed or delivered, was authorized to sell intoxicating liquor in said county. This statute was declared invalid in the case of Bowman v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 125 U. S. 465, 493, this court saying, through Mr. Justice Matthews: "The statute of Iowa under consideration falls within this prohibition. It is not an inspection law; it is not a quarantine or sanitary law. It is essentially a regulation of commerce among the States within any definition heretofore given to that term, or which can be given; and although its motive and purpose are to perfect the policy of the State of Iowa in protecting its citizens against the evils of intemperance, it is none the less on that account a regulation of commerce. If it had extended its provisions so as to prohibit the introduction into the State from foreign countries of all importations of intoxicating liquors produced abroad, no one would doubt the nature of the provision as a regulation of foreign commerce. Its nature is not changed by its application to commerce among the States. And here is the limit between the sovereign power of the state and the Federal power. That is to say, that which does not belong to commerce is within the jurisdiction of the police power of the State and that which does belong to commerce is within the jurisdiction of the United States. same process of legislation and reasoning adopted by the State and its courts would bring within the police power any article of consumption that a State might wish to exclude, whether to that which was drank or to food and clothing." The In Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, it was recognized that ardent spirits, distilled liquors, ale and beer are subjects of exchange, barter and traffic like any other commodity in Opinion of the Court. which a right of traffic exists, and that being thus articles of commerce, a State cannot, in the absence of legislation on the part of Congress, prohibit their importation from abroad or from a sister State, nor when imported prohibit their sale by the importer; and, accordingly, it was held that a statute of the State of Iowa, prohibiting the sale of any intoxicating liquors, except for pharmaceutical, medicinal, chemical or sacramental purposes, and under a license from a county court of the State, was, as applied to a sale by the importer, and in the original packages or kegs, unbroken and unopened, of such liquors manufactured and brought from another State, unconstitutional and void, as repugnant to the clause of the Constitution granting to Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States. In Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313, 326, 328, the facts so closely resemble those shown by the record now under consideration, and the principles stated in the opinion are so applica- . ble, that we shall state them with some particularity. A statute of the State of Minnesota, entitled "An act for the protection of the public health by providing for inspection, before slaughter, of cattle, sheep and swine designed for slaughter for human food," in its first section prohibited the sale of any fresh beef, veal, mutton, lamb or pork for human food in the State, except as subsequently provided in the act. Boards of inspectors were there provided for, whose duty it should be to inspect all cattle, sheep and swine slaughtered for human food. It was made a matter of fine or imprisonment for any one to sell or expose for sale for human food any fresh beef, mutton, lamb or pork which had not been so inspected. This court, in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Harlan, while conceding that the statute was enacted in good faith, for the purpose expressed in the title, namely, to protect the health of the people of Minnesota, held that, as the necessary effect of the act was to deny altogether to the citizens of other States the privilege of selling, within the limits of Minnesota, for human food, any fresh beef, mutton, veal or pork, from animals slaughtered outside of the State, and to compel the Opinion of the Court. people of Minnesota, wishing to buy such meats, either to purchase those taken from animals inspected and slaughtered in the State, or to incur the cost of purchasing them, when desired for their own domestic use, at points beyond the State, such legislation was void as constituting a discrimination against the products and business of other States in favor of the products and business of Minnesota, and as depriving the people of Minnesota of the right to bring into that State, for the purposes of sale and use, sound and healthy meat, wherever such meat may have come into existence. It was said: "A law providing for the inspection of animals whose meats are designed for human food cannot be regarded as a rightful exertion of the police powers of the State, if the inspection prescribed is of such a character, or is burdened with such conditions, as will prevent altogether the introduction into the State of sound meats, the products of animals slaughtered in other States. It is one thing for a State to exclude from its limits cattle, sheep or swine, actually diseased, or meats that, by reason of their condition, or the condition of the animals from which they are taken, are unfit for human food, and punish all sales of such animals or of such meats within its limits. It is quite a different thing for a State to declare, as does Minnesota by the necessary operation of its statute, that fresh beef, veal, mutton, lamb or pork-articles that are used in every part of this country to support human lifeshall not be sold at all for human food within its limits, unless the animal from which such meat is taken is inspected in that State, or, as is practically said, unless the animal is slaughtered in that State. It is, however, contended, in behalf of the State, that there is in fact no interference by this statute, with the bringing of cattle, sheep and swine into Minnesota from other States, nor any discrimination against the products and business of other States for the reason—such is the argument—that the statute requiring an inspection of animals on the hoof, as a condition of the privilege of selling, or offering for sale, in the State, the meats taken from them, is applicable alike to all owners of such animals, whether citizens of Minnesota or citizens of other States. To this we answer, that a VOL. CLXV-7 Opinion of the Court. statute may, upon its face, apply equally to the people of all the States, and yet be a regulation of interstate commerce which a State may not establish. A burden imposed by a State upon interstate commerce is not to be sustained simply because the statute imposing it applies alike to the people of all the States including the people of the State enacting such statute. Robbins v. Shelby Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, 497; Case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232. The people of Minnesota have as much right to protection against the enactments of that State, interfering with the freedom of commerce among the States, as have the people of other States. Although this statute is not avowedly, or in terms, directed against the bringing into Minnesota of the products of other States, its necessary effect is to burden or affect commerce with other States, as involved in the transportation into that State, for the purposes of sale there, of all fresh beef, veal, mutton, lamb or pork, however free from disease may have been the animals from which it was taken." The same reasoning prevailed in Brimmer v. Rebman, 138 U. S. 78, wherein an act of the State of Virginia, which declared it to be unlawful to offer for sale, within the limits of that State, any beef, veal or mutton from animals slaughtered one hundred miles or more from the place at which it is offered for sale, unless it has been previously inspected and approved by local inspectors, was held void, as being in restraint of commerce between the States, and as imposing a discriminating tax upon the products and industries of some States in favor of the products and industries of Virginia; and wherein it was said "that the statute of Virginia, although avowedly enacted to protect its people against the sale of unwholesome meats, has no real or substantial relation to such an object, but, by its necessary operation, is a regulation of commerce, beyond the power of the State to establish." After the decision in Leisy v. Hardin, and, perhaps, in pursuance of some observations contained therein, Congress passed the act of August 8, 1890, 26 Stat. 313, c. 728, enacting "that all fermented, distilled or other intoxicating liquors, or liquids transported into any State or Territory, or remaining therein Opinion of the Court. for use, consumption, sale or storage therein, shall upon arrival in such State or Territory be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State or Territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers to the same extent and in the same manner as though such liquids or liquors had been produced in such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced therein in original packages or otherwise." This law was approved as valid, in the case of In re Rahrer, 140 U. S. 545, and a provision of the constitution of Kansas, which provided that the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in that State, except for medicinal, scientific and mechanical purposes, and an act passed in enforcement thereof, making penal the manufacture, sale or barter of any spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented or other intoxicating liquors, were held to be efficacious, and that imported liquors or liquids shall, upon arrival in a State, fall within the category of domestic articles of a similar nature. In Plumley v. Massachusetts, 155 U. S. 461, 471, and in Emmert v. Missouri, 156 U. S. 296, in the first of which the validity of a state law forbidding the manufacture and sale of imitation butter, and in the second the validity of an act compelling itinerant pedlers to take out licenses, were sustained, the scope and effect of the case of Leisy v. Hardin and of the act of Congress of August 8, 1890, were considered and a full review of the cases heretofore cited was gone into and their principles elaborately discussed. In the light of these cases the act of South Carolina of January 2, 1895, must, as to those of its provisions which affect the plaintiff in the present suits, stand condemned. It is not an inspection law. The prohibition of the importation of the wines and liquors of other States by citizens of South Carolina for their own use is made absolute, and does not depend on the purity or impurity of the articles. Only the state functionaries are permitted to import into the State, and thus those citizens who wish to use foreign wines and liquors are deprived of the exercise of their own judgment and taste in the selection of commodities. To empower a |