These are but a few of the many decisions of the Supreme Court in the reconstruction period upholding the rights of the states against attempted federal encroachment arising from the conditions of the Civil War. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to the men who composed the Court at this time for their courage and firmness in the face of popular clamor and passion.
The solicitude of the Court for the rights of the states did not end with the reconstruction period. It has continued down to the present day. In the Income Tax cases[1] the Court held that a tax upon income from bonds of a state municipal corporation was repugnant to the Constitution as a tax upon the borrowing power of the state.
[Footnote 1: Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S., 429 (1895).]
In Keller v. United States[1] the Court declared unconstitutional, as an encroachment on the police power of the states, an act of Congress making it a felony to harbor alien prostitutes, the Court declaring that "speaking generally, the police power is reserved to the states and there is no grant thereof to Congress in the Constitution."
[Footnote 1: 213 U.S., 138 (1909).]
In the Child Labor case[1] the Court held the federal Child Labor Law of 1916 unconstitutional as invading the police power reserved to the states. The Court said:
This Court has no more important function than that which devolves upon it the obligation to preserve inviolate the constitutional limitations upon the exercise of authority, federal and state, to the end that each may continue to discharge, harmoniously with the other, the duties entrusted to it by the Constitution.[2]
[Footnote 1: Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S., 251 (1918).]
[Footnote 2: An even stronger assertion of state rights is found in the Child Labor Tax Case (Bailey v. The Drexel Furniture Co.) decided May 15, 1922, after this chapter had been put into print.]
How is it then, someone may ask, if the Supreme Court is so zealous in defense of the rights of the states, that those rights are being encroached upon more and more by the National Government? The answer must be that there has been a change in the popular frame of mind. The desire for uniformity, standardization, efficiency, has outgrown the earlier fears of a centralization of power. Congress has found ways, under the constitutional grants of power to lay taxes and regulate interstate commerce, to legislate in furtherance of the popular demands. The Court is not strong enough (no governmental agency which could be devised would be strong enough) to hold back the flood or permanently thwart the popular will. In a government of the people everything has to yield sooner or later to the deliberate wish of the majority.