Joseph McKenna

“ Experience, however, is the other way, and in almost every instance of the exercise of the power differences are asserted from previous exercises of it and made a ground of attack. The present case is an example.
Commerce among the states, we have said, consists of intercourse and traffic between their citizens, and includes the transportation of persons and property. There may be, therefore, a movement of persons as well as of property; that is, a person may move or be moved in interstate commerce. ”

“ Because the right and power to regulate and control prostitution, or any other immoralities of citizens, comes within the reserved police power of the several states, and under the Constitution Congress cannot interfere therewith, either directly or indirectly, under the grant of power 'to regulate commerce between the states. ”

“ That any person who shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or assist in obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any territory or in the District of Columbia, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such woman or girl to become a prostitute or to give herself up to debauchery, or to engage in any other immoral practice ”

“ This is the effect of the decisions; and surely, if the facility of interstate transportation can be taken away from the demoralization of lotteries, the debasement of obscene literature, the contagion of diseased cattle or persons, the impurity of food and drugs, the like facility can be taken away from the systematic enticement to and the enslavement in prostitution and debauchery of women, and, more insistently, of girls. ”

“ Motives executed by actions may make it the concern of government to exert its powers. Right purpose and fair trading need no restrictive regulation, but let them be transgressed, and penalties and prohibitions must be applied. ”

“ The asserted errors are set forth in twenty-five bills of exceptions, and the special assignment of errors in this court occupy twenty-eight pages of the record, and present the constitutional objections to the law in all the aspects that counsel's ingenuity can devise. A like ingenuity has been exercised to represent the many ways in which the conduct of the accused can be viewed and shown to be inconsistent with guilty purpose. ”