tion made
for an unlawful purpose or for a lawful purpose using unlawful means;
this is to be found in all the text-books; but it should be amplified
in accordance with our earliest and deepest law so as to include a
combination for the mere purpose of injuring another, or molesting him
or controlling him in the exercise of his ordinary lawful rights; and
_a fortiori_--as of combinations to enhance the price of food--to
injure the public. It is for this reason that the combination of
many to diminish the trade of one is an unlawful combination; the
combination may be punished although all the acts done are within the
letter of the law; and when the conspiracy is evidenced by unlawful
acts, the conspiracy may be punished far more severely than the acts
could have been punished themselves. We have noted that one of the
great attempts of organized labor to-day is to do away with this
principle, to provide that no combination should be punished when the
acts committed are not punishable in themselves, and that in fact it
should be the acts and not the combination which is punishable at all.
This, it is true, was enacted by the English Conspiracy and Protection
of Property Act of 1875, as to industrial disputes only, in England;
and it is just as true that it would be unconstitutional in this
country, both under the Federal and State constitutions. Yet the
agitation for this revolution in the common law has been successful in
Maryland, California, and Oklahoma, though, as has been said, it does
not appear that any cases have yet been tried where the exception was
pleaded in defence, still less where the statute has been sustained as
constitutional.

[Footnote 1: "The position cited by Chitty from Hawkins, by way
of summing up the result of the cases, is this: 'In a word, all
confederacies wrongfully to prejudice another are misdemeanors at
common law, whether the intention is to injure his property, his
person, or his character.' And Chitty adds that 'the object of
conspiracy is not confined to an immediate wrong to individuals; it
may be to injure public trade, to affect public health, to violate
public police, to insult public justice, or to do any act in itself
illegal (3 Chit. Crim. Law, 1139)." Quoted by Shaw, Chief Justice of
Massachusetts, in Commonwealth _v_. Hunt (4 Mete. Illinois), printed
as a Senate Document in the 57th Congress, 1st session (Mass.) III.]

It is to be noted that the original English Act of 1875