Some years earlier the Court had had occasion in United States _v._ Ferger,[416] decided in 1919, to reiterate the rule laid down in the Southern Railway Case, that Congress's protective power over interstate commerce reaches all kinds of obstructions whatever the source of their origin. Ferger and associates had been indicted under a federal statute for issuing a false bill of lading, to cover a fictitious shipment in interstate commerce. Their defense was that, since there could be no commerce in a fraudulent bill of lading, therefore Congress's power could not reach their alleged offense, a contention which Chief Justice White, speaking for the Court, answered thus: "But this mistakenly assumes that the power of Congress is to be necessarily tested by the intrinsic existence of commerce in the particular subject dealt with, instead of by the relation of that subject to commerce and its effect upon it. We say mistakenly assumes, because we think it clear that if the proposition were sustained it would destroy the power of Congress to regulate, as obviously that power, if it is to exist, must include the authority to deal with obstructions to interstate commerce (_In re Debs_, 158 U.S. 564) and with a host of other acts which, because of their relation to and influence upon interstate commerce, come within the power of Congress to regulate, although they are not interstate commerce in and of themselves. * * * That as instrumentalities of interstate commerce, bills of lading are the efficient means of credit resorted to for the purpose of securing and fructifying the flow of a vast volume of interstate commerce upon which the commercial intercourse of the country, both domestic and foreign, largely depends, is a matter of common knowledge as to the course of business of which we may take judicial notice. Indeed, that such bills of lading and the faith and credit given to their genuineness and the value they represent are the producing and sustaining causes of the enormous number of transactions in domestic and foreign exchange, is also so certain and well known that we may notice it without proof."[417]
Congressional Regulation of Commerce as Traffic
Congress's chief effort to regulate commerce in the primary sense of "traffic" is embodied in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the opening section of which declares "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise," or "conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations" to be "illegal," while the second section makes it a misdemeanor for anybody to "monopolize or attempt to monopolize any part of such commerce."[418] The act was passed to curb the growing tendency to form industrial combinations and the first case to reach the Court under it was the famous "Sugar Trust Case," United States _v._ E.C. Knight Co.[419] Here the Government asked for the cancellation of certain agreements, whereby, through purchases of stock in other companies, the American Sugar Refining Company, had "acquired," it was conceded, "nearly complete control of the manufacture of refined sugars in the United States." The question of the validity of the act was not expressly discussed by the Court, but was subordinated to that of its proper construction. So proceeding, the Court, in pursuance of doctrines of Constitutional Law which were then dominant with it, turned the act from its intended purpose and destroyed its effectiveness for several years, as that of the Interstate Commerce Act was being contemporaneously impaired. The following passage early in Chief Justice Fuller's opinion for the Court, sets forth the conception of the Federal System that controlled the decision: "It is vital that the independence of the commercial power and of the police power, and the delimitation between them, however sometimes perplexing, should always be recognized and observed, for while the one furnishes the strongest bond of union, the other is essential to the preservation of the autonomy of the States as required by our dual form of government; and acknowledged evils, however grave and urgent they may appear to be, had better be borne, than risk be run, in the effort to suppress them, of more serious consequences by resort to expedients of even doubtful constitutionality."[420]