Protective legislation

“ The State may prescribe such regulations for every pursuit and calling of life as will promote the public health, secure the good order and advance the general prosperity of society, but when once prescribed, the pursuit or calling must be free to be followed by every citizen who is within the conditions designated, and will conform to the regulations. This is the fundamental idea upon which our institutions rest, and unless adhered to in the legislation of the country our government will be a republic only in name. ”

“ We are not unmindful of the fact-indeed, this court has often had occasion to observe the acknowledged power of the states to protect the morals, the health, and safety of their people by appropriate legislation sometimes touches, in its exercise, the line separating the respective domains of national and state authority. ”

“ The corresponding obligation of protection on the part of the government is immediately connected with it, in the declaration that each individual shall be protected in his rights of property, person, and life, and that obligation was to be fulfilled by the enforcement of the laws then existing appropriate to those objects, and by that future appropriate legislation which was promised to secure to them an orderly government. ”

“ But if it be within the power of a legislature to adopt such means for the protection of the lives of its citizens, it is difficult to see why precautions may not also be adopted for the protection of their health and morals. It is as much for the interest of the State that the public health should be preserved as that life should be made secure. ”

“ The authority of the state to pass laws in the exercise of the police power, having for their object the promotion of the public health, safety and welfare is very broad as has been affirmed in numerous and recent decisions of this court. ”

“ This devotion will lead us to strongly resist all impatience of constitutional limitations of Federal power and to persistently check the increasing tendency to extend the scope of Federal legislation into the domain of State and local jurisdiction upon the plea of subserving the public welfare. The preservation of the partitions between proper subjects of Federal and local care and regulation is of such importance under the Constitution, which is the law of our very existence, that no consideration of expediency or sentiment should tempt us to enter upon doubtful ground. ”

“ We are not concerned with the wisdom of this legislation or the need for it. Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U.S. 236, 246, 61 S.Ct. 862, 865, 85 L.Ed. 1305, 133 A.L.R. 1500. Protection of the safety of persons is one of the traditional uses of the police power of the States. ”

“ We have maintained that it is strictly within the province of the law to protect life, and to prohibit any arrangements by which it is shown that the lives of people in pursuit of their lawful and useful work, are without necessity endangered. Preventable accidents of every kind we have always declared it to be the duty of the legislature to prevent. ”

“ In such a case, the safety of the community must supersede every other consideration, and every subsisting regulation which interferes with that must be departed from, rather than that the people should be ruined. ”

“ We have assumed so great a responsibility in necessary regulation that we unconsciously have assumed the responsibility for maintained service; therefore the lawful power for the enforcement of decisions is necessary to sustain the majesty of government and to administer to the public welfare. ”

“ The liberty of contract and the right of private property which are protected by the limitations of the constitution are held subject to the police power of government to pass and enforce laws for the protection of the public health, public morals, and public safety. ”

“ And the enforcement of uncompensated obedience to a regulation established under this power for the public health or safety is not an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation or without due process of law. ”

“ Your legislative departments everywhere have passed innumerable stringent laws and created law enforcement departments of all kinds. You have built your so-called impregnable safes, safe deposit vaults, and burglar alarms. You have developed intricate and costly systems of business protective methods ”

“ A congressional purpose to immunize from regulation, state and national, a substance so obviously requiring control is not lightly to be inferred, especially where public health or safety is concerned. ”

“ It has established, too, protection in the law, for the weak as against the strong, the poor as against the rich, the citizen as against those who would trustee the State for their own benefit; and, on the broad scale, it provides for the preservation of the public health, relief of the unfortunate, the care of all children, and in a thousand humane ways permeates the law with its salutary justice. ”

“ That 'the safety of the people is the supreme law,' not only comports with, but is indispensable to, the exercise of those powers in their public functionaries, without which that safety cannot be guarded. ”

“ It is equally true that the state may invest local bodies called into existence for purposes of local administration with authority in some appropriate way to safeguard the public health and the public safety. ”

“ While the right continues in full force under the guarantees of the Constitution, and cannot be divested or alienated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a barren and a worthless right, unless sustained, protected, and enforced by appropriate police regulations and local legislation, prescribing adequate remedies for its violation. These regulations and remedies must necessarily depend entirely upon the will and wishes of the people of the Territory, as they can only be prescribed by the local legislatures. ”

“ The statute speaks of “the overall welfare and development of man,” 42 U.S.C. § 4331 (a) and makes it the responsibility of Federal agencies to “use all practicable means . . . to . . . assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and esthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings.” ”

“ Without resort to statutes, means of protection are frequently available to the individual or to the community. On the other hand, unless in fact a common-law nuisance exists, boards of health are often, perhaps usually, powerless, either by reason of the express language of the statutes or because of the constitutional guarantees as to private property. ”

“ To ascertain and fix such reasonable standards and to prescribe, modify and enforce such reasonable orders for the adoption of safety devices, safeguards and other means or methods of protection to be as nearly uniform as possible, as may be necessary to carry out all laws and lawful orders relative to the protection of the life, health, safety and welfare of employees in employments and places of employment or frequenters of places of employment. ”

“ A state cannot make a law designed to raise money to support paupers, to detect or prevent crime, to guard against disease, and to cure the sick, an inspection law, within the constitutional meaning of that word, by calling it so in the title. ”

“ They ought to know that they can look nowhere else with perfect assurance of safety and protection. Let them, then maintain those governments, not only in their rights, but in their dignity and influence. Make it the interest of their people to serve them ”

“ I urge Congress to step up to its responsibilities, to listen to law enforcement professionals and reject special interest groups who are trying to defeat this bill, to invest in prevention so that we can stop more violent outbursts before they start. ”

“ Thus, to go a little into details, one of the highest attributes and duties of a legislature is to regulate public matters with all public bodies, no less than the community, from time to time, in the manner which the public welfare may appear to demand. ”

“ If the law in controversy has a reasonable relation to the protection of the public health, safety, or welfare, it is not to be set aside because the judiciary may be of opinion that the act will fail of its purpose, or because it is thought to be an unwise exertion of the authority vested in the legislative branch of the government. ”

“ The power which the legislature has to promote the general welfare is very great, and the discretion which that department of the government has, in the employment of means to that end, is very large. ”

“ And it is also settled that the police power embraces regulations designed to promote the public convenience or the general welfare and prosperity, as well as those in the interest of the public health, morals, or safety. ”

“ It is contended in justification for the act in question that it was adopted in the interest of the city, to promote its cleanliness and protect its health, and was the legitimate exercise of what is termed the police power of the State. That power undoubtedly extends to all regulations affecting the health, good order, morals, peace, and safety of society, and is exercised on a great variety of subjects, and in almost numberless ways. ”

“ Having no interest that can distinguish us from the rest of the community, we neither fear censure nor wish applause. Having thus discharged the duty of citizens and trustees of the public, we shall now submit to the people those precautions and securities, which, on mature reflection on this momentous subject, we deem necessary for that safety and happiness. ”

“ In an employment so dangerous (if necessary precautions be not taken) that great numbers of working people are exposed to avoidable dangers to life and limb, and when (recognizing the interest which the state has in the welfare of the citizen) the legislature has interposed its authority in enacting regulative statutes, does not public policy require that such statutes should be mandatory, and not subject to constructive or actual waiver by the persons for whose safety they are framed ? ”

“ In terms the acts involved are 'emergency' statutes, and, designed as they were by the Legislature to promote the health, morality, comfort and peace of the people of the state, they are obviously a resort to the police power to promote the public welfare. They are a consistent interrelated group of acts essential to accomplish their professed purposes. ”

“ As we had occasion to point out at the last term of Court, there are many matters which are appropriate subjects of regulation in the interest of the safety, health and well-being of local communities which, because of their local character and their number and diversity and because of the practical difficulties involved, may never be adequately dealt with by Congress. ”

“ For years and years we have been going to the Legislature in Illinois pleading for protection; a measure that would protect our lives, a measure that would protect those who are dear to us, and year after year we have failed, until at the present time patience has almost ceased to be a virtue. ”

“ That the power to apply correction by legislative means cannot be doubted, without supposing the better portion of the community unable to control the excesses of the ignorant and disorderly, which would be to declare our incapacity to maintain the first principles of government by ensuring the public safety. ”

“ May we say that notice would afford adequate protection of the public safety where the Legislature and the highest court of the state, with greater knowledge of local conditions, have declared, in effect, that it would not? If the public safety is imperiled, surely neither grant, nor contract, can prevail against the exercise of the police power. ”

“ It is equally within the power of the state to prescribe the safeguards and precautions foreseen to be necessary and proper to prevent by anticipation those wrongs and injuries which, after they have been inflicted, the state has the power to redress and to punish. ”