David Josiah Brewer

“ Considering the first of these conditions, suppose Congress in the exercise of its power over interstate commerce should enact that all interstate passengers be charged exactly 4 cents a mile, and the railroad company, while obeying that statute in its charges for carrying passengers from Nashville to Louisville, should from Franklin to Louisville charge 5 cents a mile, could it be pretended that the prohibition of the state Constitution against charging more for a short haul than for a long haul was not operative because an interference with interstate commerce? ”

“ Nor are we to suppose that competition between Nashville and Louisville is limited to the matter of the transportation of tobacco. It is a competition between water and railroad transportation, and naturally extends to all articles of freight, as well as to passengers. By the reasoning of the opinion the state of Kentucky would be powerless to compel the Louisville & Nashville Company to charge a less than the competitive Nashville rate, no matter how reasonable, from any point within its borders to Louisville. It does not seem to me that much is left of state control over local rates. ”

“ It seems to me, in conclusion, that a state legislature has full power over local rates, subject only to the restriction that it cannot require a carrier to carry without reasonable compensation, and that when it legislates for local rates alone it may fix those rates by figures, or upon the basis of any standard which it sees fit to adopt, and the mere fact that it bases them upon some standard is not legislation regulating that standard, the local rates are alone the matter regulated. ”