This section is from the book "The Constitutional Law Of The United States", by Westel Woodbury Willoughby. Also available from Amazon: Constitutional Law.
In Loewe v. Lawler49 the court took a very advanced ground as to what will be construed to be an interference with interstate commerce. In this case the act of 1890 was held to have been violated by a combination of members of a labor organization, in the nature of a boycott, to prevent the manufacture of hats intended for transportation beyond the State, and to prevent their vendees in other States from reselling the hats, and from further negotiating with the manufacturers for further purchases.
47 As regards the bearing of the combination upon interstate commerce, the court say: "Commerce among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business. When cattle are sent for sale from a place in one State, with the expectation that they will end their transit, after purchase, in another, and when in effect they do so, with only the interruption necessary to find a purchaser at the stock yards, and when this is a typical, constantly recurring course, the current thus existing is a current of commerce among the States, and the purchase of the cattle is a part and incident of such commerce. What we say is true at least of such a purchase by residents in another State from that of the seller and of the cattle. And we need not trouble ourselves at this time as to whether the statute could be escaped by any arrangement as to the place where the sale in point of law is consummated."
48 200 U. S. 179; 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 208; 50 L. ed. 428.
49 208 U. S. 274; 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 301; 52 L. ed. 488.
In order to bring this combination within the terms of the federal statute the court again emphasize that where the general purpose and effect of the plan is to restrain interstate trade, the separate acts, though in themselves acts within a State and beyond federal cognizance, become illegal as tested by the federal law.50
A case partially supporting this Danbury Hatters case is In re Debs.51 In that case the circuit court had held a combination of workmen to boycott the cars of the Pullman Car Company, and the trains carrying them to be a violation of the act of 1890.52 In the Supreme Court the case was rested upon the broader ground that the Federal Government in the exercise of its full power over interstate commerce and the transmission of the mails, has the authority to remove every obstruction thereto. With reference to the act of 1890, the court, however, say: "We enter into no examination of the act of July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209, upon which the circuit court relied mainly to sustain its jurisdiction.
50 "The averments here are that there was an existing interstate traffic between plaintiffs and citizens of other States, and that for the direct purpose of destroying such interstate traffic defendants combined not merely to prevent plaintiffs from manufacturing articles then and there intended for transportation beyond the State, but also to prevent the vendees from reselling the hats which they had imported from Connecticut, or from further negotiating with plaintiffs for the purchase and inter-transportation of such hats from Connecticut to the various places of destination. So that, although some of the means whereby the interstate traffic was to be destroyed were acts within a State, and some of them were in themselves as a part of their obvious purpose and effect beyond the scope of federal authority, still, as we have seen, the acts must be considered as a whole, and the plan is open to condemnation, notwithstanding a negligible amount of intrastate business might be affected in carrying it out. If the purposes of the combination were, as alleged, to prevent any interstate transportation at all, the fact that the means operated at one end before physical transportation commenced and at the other end after the physical transportation ended was immaterial. Nor can the act in question be held inapplicable because defendants were not themselves engaged in interstate commerce. The act made no distinction between classes. It provided that 'every' contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade was illegal. The records of Congress show that several efforts were made to exempt, by legislation, organizations of farmers and laborers from the operation of the act and that all these efforts failed, so that the act remained as we have it before us."
51 158 U. S. 564; 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 900; 39 L. ed. 1092.
52 64 Fed. Rep. 724.
It must not be understood from this that we dissent from the conclusions of that court in reference to the scope of the act, but simply that we prefer to rest our judgment on the broader ground which has been discussed in this opinion, believing it of importance that the principles underlying it should be fully stated and affirmed."
 
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