Hammer v. Dagenhart

• Decision Date: 03 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 704,704
• Citation: 38 S.Ct. 529,62 L.Ed. 1101,247 U.S. 251,3 A. L. R. 649
• Parties: HAMMER, U. S. Atty., v. DAGENHART et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

247 U.S. 251

38 S.Ct. 529

62 L.Ed. 1101

HAMMER, U. S. Atty.,

v DAGENHART et al.

No. 704.

Argued April 15 and 16, 1918.

Decided June 3, 1918.

[Syllabus intentionally omitted] Mr. Solicitor General Davis, of Washington, D. C., Mr. W. L. Frierson, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Mr. Robert Szold, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 253-259 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Morgan J. O'Brien, of New York City, W. M. Hendren and Clement Manly, both of Winston-Salem, N. C., W. P. Bynum, of Greensboro, N. C., and Junius Parker, of New York City, for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 260-267 intentionally omitted]

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Mr. Justice DAY delivered the opinion of the Court.

A bill was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina by a father in his own behalf and as next friend of his two minor sons, one under the age of fourteen years and the other between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, employes in a cotton mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, to enjoin the enforcement of the act of Congress intended to prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor. Act Sept. 1, 1916, 39 Stat. 675, c. 432 (Comp. St. 1916, §§ 8819a-8816f).

The District Court held the act unconstitutional and entered a decree enjoining its enforcement. This appeal brings the case here. The first section of the act is in the margin.¹

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Other sections of the act contain provisions for its enforcement and prescribe penalties for its violation.

The attack upon the act rests upon three propositions: First: It is not a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce; second: It contravenes the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution; third: It conflicts with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

The controlling question for decision is: Is it within the authority of Congress in regulating commerce among the states to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of manufactured goods, the product of a factory in which, within thirty days prior to their removal therefrom, children under the age of fourteen have been employed or permitted to work, or children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work more than eight hours in any day, or more than six days in any week, or after the hour of 7 o'clock p. m., or before the hour of 6 o'clock a. m.?

The power essential to the passage of this act, the government contends, is found in the commerce clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states.

In Gibbons v. Ogdon, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. Ed. 23, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for this court, and defining the extent and nature of the commerce power, said, 'It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.' In other words, the power is one to control the means by which commerce is carried on, which is

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directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving and thus destroying it as to particular commodities. But it is insisted that adjudged cases in this court establish the doctrine that the power to regulate given to Congress incidentally includes the authority to prohibit the movement of ordinary commodities and therefore that the subject is not open for discussion. The cases demonstrate the contrary. They rest upon the character of the particular subjects dealt with and the fact that the scope of governmental authority, state or national, possessed over them is such that the authority to prohibit is as to them but the exertion of the power to regulate.

The first of these cases is Champion v. Ames, 188 U. S. 321, 23 Sup. Ct. 321, 47 L. Ed. 492, the so-called Lottery Case, in which it was held that Congress might pass a law having the effect to keep the channels of commerce free from use in the transportation of tickets used in the promotion of lottery schemes. In Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U. S. 45, 31 Sup. Ct. 364, 55 L. Ed. 364, this court sustained the power of Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act (Act June 30, 1906, c. 3915, 34 Stat. 768 [Comp. St. 1916, §§ 8717-8728]), which prohibited the introduction into the states by means of interstate commerce of impure foods and drugs. In Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308, 33 Sup. Ct. 281, 57 L. Ed. 523, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 906, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 905, this court sustained the constitutionality of the so-called 'White Slave Traffic Act' (Act June 25, 1910, c. 395, 36 Stat. 825 [Comp. St. 1916, §§ 8812-8819]), whereby the transportation of a woman in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution was forbidden. In that case we said, having reference to the authority of Congress, under the regulatory power, to protect the channels of interstate commerce:

'If the facility of interstate transportation can be taken away from the demoralization of lotteries, the debasement of obscene literature, the contagion of diseased cattle or persons, the impurity of food and drugs, the like facility can be taken away from the systematic enticement to, and the enslavement in prostitution and debauchery of women, and, more insistently, of girls.'

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In Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 37 Sup. Ct. 1 2, 61 L. Ed. 442, L. R. A. 1917F, 502, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 1168, we held that Congress might prohibit the transportation of women in interstate commerce for the purposes of debauchery and kindred purposes. In Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Railway Co., 242 U. S. 311, 37 Sup. Ct. 180, 61 L. Ed. 326, L. R. A. 1917B, 1218, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 845, the power of Congress over the transportation of intoxicating liquors was sustained. In the course of the opinion it was said:

'The power conferred is to regulate, and the very terms of the grant would seem to repel the contention that only prohibition of movement in interstate commerce was embraced. And the cogency of this is manifest, since if the doctrine were applied to those manifold and important subjects of interstate commerce as to which Congress from the beginning has regulated, not prohibited, the existence of government under the Constitution would be no longer possible.'

And concluding the discussion which sustained the authority of the Government to prohibit the transportation of liquor in interstate commerce, the court said:

'* * * The exceptional nature of the subject here regulated is the basis upon which the exceptional power exerted must rest and affords no ground for any fear that such power may be constitutionally extended to things which it may not, consistently with the guaranties of the Constitution embrace.'

In each of these instances the use of interstate transportation was necessary to the accomplishment of harmful results. In other words, although the power over interstate transportation was to regulate, that could only be accomplished by prohibiting the use of the facilities of interstate commerce to effect the evil intended.

This element is wanting in the present case. The thing intended to be accomplished by this statute is the denial of the facilities of interstate commerce to those manufacturers in the states who employ children within the prohibited ages. The act in its effect does not regulate

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transportation among the states, but aims to standardize the ages at which children may be employed in mining and manufacturing within the states. The goods shipped are of themselves harmless. The act permits them to be freely shipped after thirty days from the time of their removal from the factory. When offered for shipment, and before transportation begins, the labor of their production is over, and the mere fact that they were intended for interstate commerce transportation does not make their production subject to federal control under the commerce power.

Commerce 'consists of intercourse and traffic * * * and includes the transportation of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale and exchange of commodities.' The making of goods and the mining of coal are not commerce, nor does the fact that these things are to be afterwards shipped, or used in interstate commerce, make their production a part thereof. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. R. Co. v. Yurkonis, 238 U. S. 439, 35 Sup. Ct. 902, 59 L. Ed. 1397.

Over interstate transportation, or its incidents, the regulatory power of Congress is ample, but the production of articles, intended for interstate commerce, is a matter of local regulation. 'When the commerce begins is determined, not by the character of the commodity, nor by the intention of the owner to transfer it to another state for sale, nor by his preparation of it for transportation, but by its actual delivery to a common carrier for transportation, or the actual commencement of its transfer to another state.' Mr. Justice Jackson in Re Greene (C. C.) 52 Fed. 113. This principle has been recognized often in this court. Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 6 Sup. Ct. 475, 29 L. Ed. 715; Bacon v. Illinois, 227 U. S. 504, 33 Sup. Ct. 299, 57 L. Ed. 615, and cases cited. If it were otherwise, all manufacture intended for interstate shipment would be brought under federal control to the practical exclusion of the authority of the states, a result certainly not contemplated by the

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framers of the Constitution when they vested in Congress the authority to regulate commerce among the States. Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 21, 9 Sup. Ct. 6, 32 L. Ed. 346.

It is further contended that the authority of Congress may be exerted to control interstate commerce in the shipment of childmade goods because of the effect of the circulation of such goods in other states where the evil of this class of labor has been recognized by local legislation, and the right to thus employ child labor has been more rigorously restrained than in the state of production. In other words, that the unfair competition, thus engendered, may be...