Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/362

334 334 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. everywhere distinctly marked, and it is always easier to determine when a case arises whether it falls on one side or the other, than to settle in advance the boundary, so that it may be in all respects strictly accurate. As yet the commissioners have done nothing. There is certainly much they may do in regulating charges within the State, which will not be in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. It is to be presumed they will always act within the limits of their constitutional authority. It will be time enough to consider what may be done to prevent it when they attempt to go beyond." As will be at once seen, the case went off on questions other than the Federal question concerning the scope of the commercial clause of the Constitution ; while the dissenting opinions of Field and Harlan, JJ., dealt with yet other aspects of the controversy. Stone V. Illinois Central Railroad Co.,^ and Stone v. New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad Co.,^ involved no questions which are of importance to the present inquiry, and need not be considered under this head. In 1886, Wabash, St. Louis, & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois,^ came before the Supreme Court, and in it the prior cases were carefully reviewed. The controversy arose over a statute of Illinois, providing a penalty for any railroad company charging or receiv- ing, within that State, for transporting passengers or freight of the same class the same or a greater sum for any distance than it did for a longer. The defendant had made such discrimination in regard to goods transported from Peoria, Illinois, and Gilman, Illinois, to New York, charging more for the same class of goods carried from Gilman than from Peoria, although the former place was eighty-six miles nearer to New York. The Illinois act was held unconstitutional, so far as it applied to such commerce, not- withstanding that in its operation it was limited to that part of the voyage which lay within the State of Illinois. The court, by Miller, J., said : — "If the Illinois statute could be construed to apply exclusively to contracts for a carriage which begins and ends within the State, discon- nected from a continuous transportation through or into other States, there does not seem to be any difficulty in holding it to be valid. For instance, a contract might be made to carry goods for a certain price from Cairo to Chicago, or from Chicago to Alton. The charges for these might be within the competency of the Illinois legislature to I116U. S. 307. 2116U. S. 352. 8118U. 8.557.