“That he shall also enforce the establishment of sanitary cordons to prevent the spread of said disease from infected districts adjacent to or within the limits of the United States,”—
I will add, this clause may be treated under two different heads,—first, as ancillary, from the nature of the case, to the power under the clause to regulate commerce with foreign nations. From the nature of the case, if you have the power to shut out cholera from the ports, you must be intrusted with an associate power to follow this same enemy even into the interior, precisely as you follow goods escaping the exercise of your power in the ports. I am willing, therefore, to put it even on the first clause of the constitutional provision, calling it simply ancillary. But I do not stop there; for, associated with this clause, and constituting part of the provision, are the words, “and among the several States.” Congress has power to regulate commerce among the several States. Now, Sir, assuming that commerce is, as described or defined by our Supreme Court, intercourse among men, embracing the transportation, not only of goods, but of passengers, and applicable to everything that comes under the comprehensive term “intercourse,”—giving to it that expansive definition which I think you will find in the decisions of the Supreme Court, I ask you if there is not under that second clause ample power also to regulate this matter. Congress has power to regulate commerce, communication, intercourse, transportation of freight and transportation of passengers among the several States. To make that effective, you must concede a power such as appears in the clause to which the Senator from Iowa has directed my attention. There is no reference here to State lines; and why? From the necessity of the case. The disease itself does not recognize State lines. The authority which goes forth to meet the disease must be at least on an equality with the disease, and can recognize no State lines. How vain to set up State rights as an impediment to this beneficent power!
I therefore conclude that the power over this subject is plenary, whether you look at the first clause of the Constitution to which I have called attention, relating to foreign commerce, or the second clause, relating to commerce among the States. It is full; it is complete. Hence I put aside the constitutional objection, whether used seriously or jocosely, as it was perhaps by my friend from New York; I put it aside as absolutely out of the question and irrelevant. Congress has ample power over this whole subject. And, Sir, permit me to ask, if it had not ample power over it, where should we be as a government at this time? Can we confess that a great government of the world must fold its arms, and see a foreign enemy—for such it is—crossing the sea and invading our shores, yet we unable to meet it? I do not believe that this transcendent republic is thus imbecile. I believe, that, under the text of the National Constitution, as well as from the nature of the case, it has ample powers to meet such enemy.
And this brings me, Sir, to the proposed amendment of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Edmunds]. He moves to strike out the clause to which I called attention the other day, and to substitute certain words creating a commission. I objected to this clause the other day; I will read it now:—
“That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of War, with the coöperation of the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Treasury, whose concurrent action shall be directed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to adopt an efficient and uniform system of quarantine against the introduction into this country of the Asiatic cholera.”
I objected, it may be remembered, to this clause, as placing the bill under the patronage of the war power. I did not think it needed that patronage, though I was willing to admit that it might need sometimes the exercise of the war authority; but I did not think it needed to be derived from the war power. It was not from the nature of the case an exercise of this power, but it was clearly derived from the power over the commerce of the country; and I regretted, therefore, that the framers of the bill had seemed to put the war power in the forefront. The Senator from Vermont meets that suggestion by an amendment to the effect that a commission shall be constituted, embracing the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Treasury. I have no particular criticism to make upon the amendment. If the Senate consent to it, I shall certainly be disposed to join. But I think a better form still may be adopted, and one placing what we do more completely and unreservedly under that power of the Constitution from which I think it is derived,—that is, the power to regulate commerce. I would therefore propose that the duty shall be confided primarily to the Secretary of the Treasury, who, in the exercise of his powers, shall be aided by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, under the direction of the President of the United States.
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