In Mugler v. Kansas6 certain liquor laws of the State were held not to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the License Cases7 the constitutionality of the liquor laws of a number of the States was considered both with reference to the Fourteenth Amendment and the commerce clause, and, upon the whole, a considerable power on the part of the States to regulate the sale of imported liquors, recognized.

But in Bowman v. Railroad8 the court explained that it had not in the License Cases passed squarely upon the application of state laws to liquors brought into the States from outside, and, in the case at bar, held invalid, as a regulation of interstate commerce, a law which forbade any common carrier to bring intoxicating liquors within the State from any other State or Territory, without first obtaining a certificate from the proper state officials that the consignees were licensed by the State to sell such liquors.

The argument of the court is that the statute in question was neither an inspection law, nor a police measure confining its direct operation to domestic goods, or to imported goods after they had become commingled with, and therefore a part of, the general goods of the State.

"It is not an exercise of the jurisdiction of the State over persons and property within its limits. On the contrary, it is an attempt to exert that jurisdiction over persons and property within the limits of other States. It seeks to prohibit and stop their passage and importation into its own limits, and is designed as a regulation for the conduct of commerce before the merchandise is brought to its border. It is not one of those local regulations designed to aid and facilitate commerce; it is not an inspection law to secure the due quality and measure of a commodity; it is not a law to regulate or restrict the sale of an article deemed injurious to the health and morals of the community; it is not a regulation confined to the purely internal and domestic commerce of the State; it is not a restriction which only operates upon property after it has become mingled with and forms part of the mass of the property within the State. It is, on the other hand, a regulation directly affecting interstate commerce in an essential and vital point. If authorized, in the present instance, upon the grounds and motives of the policy which have dictated it, the same would justify any and every other state regulation of interstate commerce upon any grounds and reasons which might prompt in particular cases their adoption. It is, therefore, a regulation of that character which constitutes an unauthorized interference with the power given to Congress over the subject. If not in contravention of any positive legislation by Congress, it is nevertheless a breach and interruption of that liberty of trade which Congress ordains as the national policy, by willing that it shall be free from restrictive regulations." . . .

6 123 U. S. 623; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 273; 31 L. ed. 205.

7 5 How. 504; 12 L. ed. 256.

8 125 U. S. 465; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689; 31 L. ed. 700.

". . . It may be said, however, that the right of the State to restrict or prohibit sale of intoxicating liquor within its limits, conceded to exist as a part of its police power implies the right to prohibit its importation, because the latter is necessary to the effectual exercise of the former. The argument is that a prohibition of the sale cannot be made effective, except by preventing the introduction of the subject of the sale; that if its entrance into the State is permitted, the traffic in it cannot be suppressed. But the right to prohibit sales, so far as conceded to the States, arises only after the act of transportation has terminated, because the sale which the State may forbid are of things within its jurisdiction. Its power over them does not begin to operate until they are brought within the territorial limits which circumscribe it."