Edward Douglass White

“ As we have seen, the right of the states to prohibit the sale of liquor within their respective jurisdictions in and by virtue of the regulation of commerce embodied in the Wilson act is absolutely applicable to liquor shipped from one state into another, after delivery, and before the sale in the original package. It follows that the authority of the states, so far as the sale of intoxicating liquors within their borders is concerned, is just as complete as is their right to regulate within their jurisdiction the making of contracts of insurance. ”

“ With the existence of this general power we are not, therefore, concerned. We are hence called upon only to consider whether the general power of the state to control and regulate the liquor traffic and the business of dealing or soliciting proposals for the dealing in the same within the state was inoperative as to the particular dealings here in question, because they were interstate commerce, and therefore could not be subjected to the sway of the state statute without causing that statute to be repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ It is manifest, as the subject dealt with is intoxicating liquors, that the decision of the cause does not require us to determine whether the restraints which the statute imposes would be a direct burden on interstate commerce if generally applied to subjects of such commerce, but only to decide whether such restraints are a direct burden on interstate commerce in intoxicating liquors as regulated by Congress in the act commonly known as the Wilson act. ”