ceed manufacture, come into existence after the process
of manufacture is completed, precede transportation, and are as much
commercial intercourse, where articles are bought _to be_ carried from
one State to another, as is the manual transportation of such articles
after they have been so purchased. The distinction was recognized by
this court in Gibbons _v._ Ogden, where the principal question was
whether commerce included navigation. Both the Court and counsel
recognized buying and selling or barter _as included in commerce_. * * *
The power of Congress covers and protects the absolute freedom of such
intercourse and trade among the States as may or must succeed
manufacture and precede transportation from the place of purchase." (p.
35-36). "When I speak of trade I mean the buying and selling of articles
of every kind that are recognized articles of interstate commerce.
Whatever improperly obstructs the free course of interstate intercourse
and trade, as involved in the buying and selling of articles to be
carried from one State to another, may be reached by Congress, under its
authority to regulate commerce among the States." (p. 37). "If the
national power is competent to repress _State_ action in restraint of
interstate trade as it may be involved in purchases of refined sugar to
be transported from one State to another State, surely it ought to be
deemed sufficient to prevent unlawful restraints attempted to be imposed
by combinations of corporations or individuals upon those identical
purchases; otherwise, illegal combinations of corporations or
individuals may--so far as national power and interstate commerce are
concerned--do, with impunity, what no State can do." (p. 38). "Whatever
a State may do to protect its completely interior traffic or trade
against unlawful restraints, the general government is empowered to do
for the protection of the people of all the States--for this purpose one
people--against unlawful restraints imposed upon interstate traffic or
trade in articles that are to enter into commerce among the several
States." (p. 42).

[423] 175 U.S. 211 (1899).

[424] 196 U.S. 375.--The Sherman Act was applied to break up
combinations of interstate carriers in United States _v._ Trans-Missouri
Freight Asso., 166 U.S. 290 (1897); United States _v._ Joint-Traffic
Asso., 171 U.S. 505 (1898); and Northern Securities Co. _v._ United
States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904). In the first of these cases the Court was