has resulted in the
establishment in judicial decision of the following propositions:
_First_, that Congress may provide highways for interstate
transportation (earlier, as well as today, this result might have
followed from Congress's power of spending, independently of the
commerce clause, as well as from its war and postal powers, which were
also invoked by the Court in this connection); _second_, that it may
charter private corporations for the purpose of doing the same thing;
_third_, that it may vest such corporations with the power of eminent
domain in the States; and _fourth_, that it may exempt their franchises
from State taxation.[370]

BEGINNINGS OF FEDERAL RAILWAY REGULATION

Congress began regulating the railroads of the country in a more
positive sense in 1866. By the so-called Garfield Act of that year
"every railroad company in the United States, whose road is operated by
steam," was authorized by Congress "* * * to connect with roads of
other States so as to form continuous lines for the transportation of
passengers, freight, troops, governmental supplies, and mails, to their
destination";[371] while by an act passed on July 24 of the same year it
was ordered, "in the interest of commerce and the convenient
transmission of intelligence * * * by the government of the United
States and its citizens, that the erection of telegraph lines shall, so
far as State interference is concerned, be free to all who will submit
to the conditions imposed by Congress, and that corporations organized
under the laws of one State for constructing and operating telegraph
lines shall not be excluded by another from prosecuting their business
within its jurisdiction, if they accept the terms proposed by the
National Government for this national privilege."[372]

Another act of the same period provided that "no railroad company within
the United States whose road forms any part of a line of road over which
cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals are conveyed from one State to
another, or the owners or masters of steam, sailing, or other vessels
carrying or transporting cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals from one
State to another, shall confine the same in cars, boats, or vessels of
any description, for a longer period than twenty-eight consecutive
hours, without unloading the same for rest, water, and feeding, for a
period of at least five consecutive hours, unless prevented from so
unloading by storm or other acciden