Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/435

 209 U.S. Opinion of the Cot. provided for the actual receipt or delivery of grain bought or sold therein--such delivery to be made in Chicago, Illinois. "During the whole of the year 1903 said city of Mobile, Alabama, was a city of more than twenty thousand iahabi- "Defendant paid to plaintiff a license tax of one hundred dollars for doing such busine in sid city for the year 1903, which payment was made prior to the fourth day of March, 1903; they kave not paid any further license tax to plaintiff for doing such business in said year." Upon the trial of the action, in addition to the foregoing agreed facts, the counsel for the plaintiff admitted that the rules and regolat!ous of the' New York Cotton Exchange, New Orleans Cotton Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, respectively, provided "that contracts executed therein should be in writing; and also provided that in every cotton or grain contract for future delivery executed and entered into in said exchange or board of trade, it should be stipulated, agreed and understood that an actual receipt and delivery of the cotton or grain was to. be had, and that said contracts were tram- ferable and assignable." The sole queetion here presented is, whether the statute in question is an attempt to regulste interstate commerce, for if the plaintiffs in error are shown by the foregoing agreed facts to be engaged in intersfate commerce then the statute is void, as an attempt by a State to regulate the commerce which the Constitution of the United States places within the exclusive control of Federal authority. Interstate commerce must be such as takes place between States as differentiated from commerce wholly within a State. It must have reference to interstate trade or dealing, and if the regulation is not such, and comprehends only commerce which is internal, the State may legislate. concerning it. In each case the recurring question is, on which side of the  does the commerce under invcstigation fall? It is unnecessary to review She fortact decis;ous of this court,

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