Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The Food and Drugs Act indicates its intent to respect the recognized line of distinction between domestic and interstate commerce too clearly to need argument or an examination of its language. It naturally would, as the distinction is constitutional. The fact that a food or drug might be condemned by Congress if it passed from State to State, does not carry an immunity of foods or drugs, making the same passage, that it does not condemn. Neither the silence of Congress nor the decisions of officers of the United States have any authority beyond the domain established by the Constitution. ”

“ When objects of commerce get within the sphere of State legislation the States may exercise its independent judgment and prohibit what Congress did not see fit to forbid. When they get within that sphere is determined, as we have said, by the old long-established criteria. The Food and Drugs Act does not interfere with State regulation of selling at retail. ”

“ It provides for seizure and condemnation of misbranded or adulterated articles that have been transported from one State to another, although the transit is at an end, while the articles remain unsold or in original unbroken packages, as again it may. There is no reason why a lien ex delicto should be lost by the end of the journey in which the wrong was done. ”