State regulation

“ 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 delicacy of the issues which were posed alone raised grave questions as to the propriety of allowing a state system of regulation to function alongside of a federal system. In that field any 'concurrent state power that may exist is restricted to the narrowest of limits'. ”

“ Or, in other words, stating the necessary result of the argument from a concrete consideration of the particular subject here involved, that because Congress, in adopting a regulation, had considered the nature and character of our dual system of government, state and nation, and instead of absolutely prohibiting, had so conformed its regulation as to produce co-operation between the local and national forces of government to the end of preserving the rights of all, it had thereby transcended the complete and perfect power of regulation conferred by the Constitution. ”

“ The power to regulate it embraces all the instruments by which such commerce may be conducted. So far as some of these instruments are concerned, and some subjects which are local in their operation, it has been held that the States may provide regulations until Congress acts with reference to them; but where the subject to which the power applies is national in its character, or of such a nature as to admit of uniformity of regulation, the power is exclusive of all State authority. ”

“ Yeomans, 301 U.S. 441, 454, 57 S.Ct. 842, 848, 81 L.Ed. 1210.
10. 'States are thus enabled to deal with local exigencies and to exert in the absence of conflict with federal legislation an essential protective power. And when Congress does exercise its paramount authority, it is obvious that Congress may determine how far its regulation shall go. There is no constitutional rule which compels Congress to occupy the whole field. Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy only a limited field. ”

“ In these cases the court reiterated the doctrine that the regulation of the enjoyment of the relative rights and the performance of the duties, of all persons within the jurisdiction of a State belong primarily to such a State under its reserved power to provide for the safety of all persons and property within its limits ”

“ The body of Congressional enactments regulating commerce reveals a process of legislation which is strikingly empiric. The degree of accommodation made by Congress from time to time in the relations between federal and state governments has varied with the subject matter of the legislation, the history behind the particular field of regulation, the specific terms in which the new regulatory legislation has been cast, and the procedures established for its administration. ”

“ To the extent practicable and permitted by law, no agency shall promulgate any regulation that has federalism implications and that preempts State law, unless the agency, prior to the formal promulgation of the regulation. ”

“ The right of a State to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to impose all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a 'rational basis' for adopting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order to reduce the regulatory burden on the American people, their families, their communities, their State, local, and tribal governments, and their industries; to determine whether regulations promulgated by the executive branch of the Federal Government have become unjustified or unnecessary as a result of changed circumstances; to confirm that regulations are both compatible with each other and not duplicative or inappropriately burdensome in the aggregate ”

“ Thus, at length, was realized the sublime conception of a nation in which every citizen lives under two complete and well-rounded systems of laws,—the state law and the federal law,—each with its legislature, its executive, and its judiciary moving one within the other, noiselessly and without friction. ”

“ Such an order, being legislative in its nature and made by an instrumentality of the state, is a state law within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress regulating our jurisdiction. ”

“ The law of agency which a State chooses to follow functions, for the most part, free of constitutional restraint; in our federal system, each State may regulate the relations between principal, agent, and third parties according to its own standards of fairness and sound policy. ”

“ They are not organized under the Constitution, nor subject to its complex distribution of the powers of government, as the organic law; but are the creations, exclusively, of the legislative department, and subject to its supervision and control. Whether, or not, there are provisions in that instrument which extend to and act upon these Territorial governments, it is not now material to examine. We are speaking here of those provisions that refer particularly to the distinction between Federal and State jurisdiction. ”

“ When we do at times adopt for application of federal laws within a state a rule different from that used by a state in administering its laws, the two rules may subsist without conflict, each reigning in its own realm. ”

“ It dispenses with the sound and careful principles of past decisions in this realm. And it carries the seeds of transferring to federal authority vast areas of concern whose regulation has wisely been left by the Constitution to the States. ”

“ The most one can say is that a question of federal law is lurking in the background, just as farther in the background there lurks a question of constitutional law, the question of state power in our federal form of government. ”

“ The power of the state, by appropriate legislation, to provide for the public convenience, stands upon the same ground precisely as its power by appropriate legislation to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety. ”

“ They all exercise it from necessity, and as a consequence of the exercise of other powers. The State governments themselves possess it, except in that class of questions which may arise between them and the general government, and in regard to which they have surrendered it, as well by the nature of the case as by clear constitutional provisions. In other and ordinary cases, whether a particular law be in conformity to the constitution of the State is a question which the State legislature or the State judiciary must determine. ”

“ The fundamental principle of American constitutions, it seems to me, is, that to the people of the several States belongs the resolution of all questions, whether of regulation, compact, or punitive justice, arising out of the action of their municipal government upon their citizens, or depending upon their constitutions and laws, and are judges of the validity of all acts done by their municipal authorities in the exercise of their sovereign rights, in either case without responsibility or control from any department of the federal government. ”

“ Why not suffer the general government to apply to the people in the first instance, without the formality of a requisition? This question has been repeatedly asked, and as often answered. It is because the state legislatures are more nearly connected with the people, and more acquainted with their situation and wants. They better know when to enforce or relax their laws; to embrace objects or relinquish them, according to change of circumstances: they have but a few varying interests to comprehend in general provisions. ”

“ The people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation ”

“ Bowles, supra, as to the scope of the Acts, but to infer from a general expression of congressional policy, the limitation of existing powers conferred by law on regulatory commissions throughout the nation, both state and federal, and the endowment of a different federal agency with new and superior rights and powers. ”

“ To all the common purposes of legislation, it is a great consolidation of government.
You are not to have the right to legislate in any but trivial cases; you are not to touch private contracts; you are not to have the right of having arms in your own defence; you cannot be trusted with dealing out justice between man and man. What shall the states have to do? ”

“ Uniformity in the regulations by which he is to be governed from one end to the other of his route is a necessity in his business, and, to secure it, congress, which is untrammeled by state lines, has been invested with the exclusive legislative power of determining what such regulations shall be. ”

“ But whether this power be exerted in one form or another, or by one agency or another, the enactments put forth, whether called constitutional provisions, laws ordinances, or orders are in essence legislative acts of the state; they express its will, and have no force otherwise. As respects their validity under the Constitution of the United States, all are on the same plane. ”

“ It is, indeed, distressing to reflect that it ever should have been made a question, whether the Constitution, on the whole face of which is seen so much labor to enumerate and define the several objects of federal power, could intend to introduce in the lump, in an indirect manner, and by a forced construction of a few phrases, the vast and multifarious jurisdiction involved in the common law—a law filling so many ample volumes; a law overspreading the entire field of legislation ”

“ The legislative power being that, which is predominant in all governments, ought to be, above all, of this character; because there can be no security for the general government, or the state governments, without an adequate representation, and an adequate check of each in the functions of legislation. ”

“ The legislature, taking up this matter upon general principles, are further of opinion, that Congress, considered as the sovereign guardians of the United States, ought at all times to prefer the general safety of the common cause to the particular separate interest of any individual state, and when circumstances may render such a measure expedient, it ought certainly to be adopted. ”

“ All we mean to say on this point is, that, as there is no express regulation in the Constitution defining the power which the General Government may exercise over the person or property of a citizen in a Territory thus acquired, the court must necessarily look to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, and its distribution of powers, for the rules and principles by which its decision must be governed. ”

“ That the full measure of our success may be ascertained, and the people more fully informed, the most careful and rigid investigation into the administration of every department of government and into the management of each State institution is invited and suggested. That the laws should be properly enforced upon all alike, no law-abiding man will deny. ”

“ The essence of the legislative authority is to enact laws, or, in other words, to prescribe rules for the regulation of the society; while the execution of the laws, and the employment of the common strength, either for this purpose or for the common defense, seem to comprise all the functions of the executive magistrate. ”

“ No one will deny that, however excellent, our system of checks and balances, both in cur general form of governments and in our state governments, can be vastly improved. Our state governments particularly seem much in need of such improvements. ”

“ The legislature shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory or other property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this Constitution contained shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims, either of the United States or of any particular state. ”

“ On this principle, the people of the state, acting in their sovereign capacity in convention, precisely as they adopted their own and the federal Constitution, have declared by the ordinance, that the acts of Congress which imposed duties under the authority to lay imposts, are acts, not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void. ”

“ There should be the power of determining the constitutionality of any act of a State legislature, and thus enforce upon State legislatures the restrictions laid upon them, such as, for example, the inability to lay impost duties, to pass laws violating the obligation of contracts, etc., or to regulate objects given exclusively to Congress. ”

“ While the authority of the Federal Government extends to but part of our vast system of national, State, and local justice, yet the standards which the Federal Government establishes have the most profound influence upon the whole structure. ”

“ The constitutional power of the federal government to construct or promote works of internal improvement presents itself in two points of view—the first, as bearing upon the sovereignty of the states within whose limits their execution is contemplated, if jurisdiction of the territory which they may occupy be claimed as necessary to then preservation and use ”

“ That it is the duty of the Federal government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. ”