Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/281

 ASBELL v. KANSAS. 209 U.S. OlSon of the Court. lative power which was not withdrawn from it expressly or by implication by the scheme of government put intp operation by thc Fcdcral Constitution. It may sometimes happen that a law passed in pursuance of the acknowledged power of the State will have an indirect effect upon interstate commerce. Such a law, though it is essential to its validity that authority be found in a governmental power cntircly distinct from the power to regulate interstate commerce, may reach and indi- rectly control that subject. It was at an early day observcd by Chief Justice Marshall that legislation rcfcrablc to entirely different legislative powers might affect the same subject. He said in Gibbon v, Ogden, 9 XVhcat. 194, 204: "So, if a State, in passing laws on subjects acknowledged to bc within its control, and with a view to those subiccts shall adopt a measure of the same character with one which Congress may adopt, it does not derive its authority from the particular power which has been granted, but from some other, which remains with the State, and may be executed by the same means. All experience shows, that the samc measures, or measures scarcely distinguishable from each other, may flow from distinct powers; but this does not prove that the powers themselves are identical. Although thc means uscd in their execution may somctimcs approach each other so nearly as to be confounded, thcrc are othcr situations in which they are sufficiently distinct to establish their individuality. "In our complex system, presenting the rare and difficult scheme of one general government, whose action extends over the whole, but which possesses only certain chumcrated powers; and of numerous state governments, which retain and exercise all powers not delegated to the Union, contests rcspecting power must arise. Were it even othcrwise, the mcasurcs taken by the respective governments to execute thcir acknowledged powers, would often be of the same description, and might, sometimes, interfere. This, however, does no prove that the one is exercising, or has a right to exercise, the powers of the otr."

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