at the statute involved in the
earlier case conflicted with an act of Congress, whereas the Court found
that no such conflict existed in this case. But the Court was unwilling
to rest its decision on that distinction. Speaking for the majority,
Justice Barbour seized the opportunity to proclaim a new doctrine. He
wrote: "But we do not place our opinion on this ground. We choose rather
to plant ourselves on what we consider impregnable positions. They are
these: That a State has the same undeniable and unlimited jurisdiction
over all persons and things, within its territorial limits, as any
foreign nation, where that jurisdiction is not surrendered or restrained
by the Constitution of the United States. That, by virtue of this, it is
not only the right, but the bounden and solemn duty of a State, to
advance the safety, happiness and prosperity of its people, and to
provide for its general welfare, by any and every act of legislation,
which it may deem to be conducive to these ends; where the power over
the particular subject, or the manner of its exercise is not surrendered
or restrained, in the manner just stated. That all those powers which
relate to merely municipal legislation, or what may, perhaps, more
properly be called _internal police_, are not thus surrendered or
restrained; and that, consequently, in relation to these, the authority
of a State is complete, unqualified, and exclusive."[7] Justice Story,
in dissent, stated that Marshall had heard the previous argument and
reached the conclusion that the New York statute was
unconstitutional.[8]

Status of the Issue Today

The conception of a "complete, unqualified and exclusive" police power
residing in the States and limiting the powers of the National
Government was endorsed by Chief Justice Taney ten years later in the
License Cases.[9] In upholding State laws requiring licenses for the
sale of alcoholic beverages, including those imported from other States
or from foreign countries, he set up the Supreme Court as the final
arbiter in drawing the line between the mutually exclusive, reciprocally
limiting fields of power occupied by the National and State
Governments.[10] This view has, in effect, and it would seem in theory
also, been repudiated in recent cases upholding labor relations,[11]
social security,[12] and fair labor standards acts[13] passed by
Congress.

TASK OF THE SUPREME COURT UNDER THE CLAUSE

In applying the supremacy clause to subje