The Wilson Act permits the State to control the sale of imported intoxicating liquors only when such control is exercised as a police measure.

In Scott v. Donald12 the court held that the South Carolina Dispensary law did not come within the permission of the Act, because, while not forbidding the manufacture, sale, or use of intoxicating liquors, it yet attempted to restrain the introduction of such liquors into the State from other States and Territories. This, the court declared, could not properly be described as a police measure.13

Nor, said the court, could the measure be upheld as an inspection law; for "the prohibition of the importation of wines and liquors of other States by citizens of South Carolina for their own use is made absolute and does not depend on the purity or impurity of the articles."

In Rhodes v. Iowa14 it was held that the terms of the Wilson Act subjecting articles of interstate commerce to state police authority "upon arrival" in such State meant, not upon crossing the state lines, but upon the consummation of their shipment, that is, delivery to the parties to whom consigned. In this case it was, therefore, held that the moving of certain consignments of liquor from the platform of the railway station to the freight warehouse, was a part of interstate commerce transportation and done before the state law could constitutionally attach to the goods thus moved.

12 165 U. S. 58; 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 265; 41 L. ed. 632.

13 " It is not a law purporting to forbid the importation, manufacture, sale or use of intoxicating liquors as articles detrimental to the welfare of the State and to the health of the inhabitants, and hence it is not within the scope and operation of the act of Congress of August, 1890. That law was not intended to confer upon any State the power to discriminate injuriously against the products of other States in articles whose manufacture and use are not forbidden, and which are therefore the subjects of legitimate commerce. . . . The question whether a given state law is a lawful exercise of the police power is still open, and must remain open, to this court. Such a law must forbid entirely the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors and be valid. Or it may provide equal regulations for the inspection and sale of all domestic and imported liquors to be valid. But the State cannot, under the congressional legislation referred to, establish a system which, in effect, discriminates between interstate and domestic commerce in commodities to make and use which are admitted to be lawful."

14 170 U. S. 412; 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 664; 42 L. ed. 1088.

In Scott v. Donald the court had said that the Dispensary law "is not a law purporting to forbid the importation, manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating liquor, as detrimental to the welfare of the State and to the health of the inhabitants, and hence it is not within the scope of the operation of the Wilson Act." This had generally been understood as intimating that only state laws totally prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors within the State would be held to come within the provisions of the Wilson Act. In Vance v. Vandercook,15 however, the court held that because a state law permits the sale of liquors subject to particular restrictions it does not follow that the law is not a police measure and, therefore, beyond the permissive provisions of the Wilson Act. Also it was held that the state law was not discrriminative against interstate commerce because it gave to state authorities an exclusive right to purchase all liquor sold in the State, which right they might employ to purchase from whomsoever they might please.

The state law was, however, held invalid in so far as it attempted to prevent the residents of the State from importing liquors for their own use, the permission of the Wilson law being held to extend only to the prohibition of the sale in original packages of importations of intoxicating liquors. And, in fact, it is declared that Congress could not constitutionally give to the States this power to prohibit importation of goods for the importer's own use, because, as the opinion declares, this right "is derived from the Constitution of the United States and does not rest on the grant of the state law." 16

15 170 U. S. 438; 18 Supi Ct. Rep. 674; 42 L. ed. 1100.

16 Commenting upon this last statement, Justice Shiras, Chief Justice Fuller, and Justice McKenna declare that, once concede that Congress may authorize the States to forbid the sale of original packages, it would, by a. parity of reasoning, follow that Congress might permit the States to forbid Importation for use. As a matter of fact, however, these justices denied that congress could do either and asserted that the permission of the Wilson Act was intended to apply only to those cases in which the States, as a police measure, should find it necessary to declare that the use of intoxicating liquors of any kind is against morality, good health and the safety of the community, and wholly to prohibit their manufacture and sale.

The court having decided that a State could not, even when aided by the provisions of the Wilson Act, prevent its inhabitants from importing liquors for their own use and consumption, the question soon arose whether this principle would, notwithstanding state prohibition laws, validate C. O. D. shipments of liquors, that is, express consignments of liquors which were to be paid for on delivery. It was argued that as to these the nature of the contract fixed the place of sale at the residence of the consignees and made the express company the agent of the consignors, and that the sale of liquor being within the control of the State, the express company thereby became liable to the penalties of the state prohibition laws.