Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/373

345 FEDERAL RESTRAINTS. 345 State Transportation. 1. That a State, in the matter of intrastate traffic, retains power of control over the same, unless said control has been bargained away by express grant. 2. That the presumption always is against such grant. 3. That a State, in the exercise of its power of control, is pro- hibited by the Constitution of the United States from reducing fares or freights below reasonable rates, and that the Federal courts, and not the State legislatures, are to be the final judges of what is reasonable. The result is, therefore, that a very large measure of protection is afforded to the railroads through the medium of the Federal Con- stitution. So far as interstate commerce is concerned, no State can interfere with that, for it lies exclusively within the national domain ; while, so far as relates to State commerce, that is subject to the limitation that no State, under cover of legislation, can de- prive a railroad of its property without due process of law, or deny it the equal protection of the laws. As has been seen, the Supreme Court did not arrive at this conclusion at once, or with- out something of hesitation. When, in 1876, the Granger Cases were decided, there was not that disposition to give the clauses of the Constitution the ample breadth of construction which they have since received. The propriety of the change in the Court's atti- tude, however, cannot be doubted. Possibly nothing has done more to sustain the value of American railroad securities, or to create greater confidence therein, than the knowledge that beyond and above the sovereign power of the State there is the supreme authority of the nation over interstate as well as foreign commerce ; while beyond and above that is the ultimate, final doctrine of vested rights, which neither State nor nation, jointly or separately, can invade or impair. Constitution, Art. I., section 8, clause 3 ; Amdt. XIV., clause i ; Amdt. V. William F. Dana,