Numerous measures have been proposed in Congress the aim of which has been to empower the States to exercise full jurisdiction over interstate shipments of intoxicating liquors, immediately upon their coming within their borders, whether before or after delivery, and whether imported for sale or consumption by the individual consignees. The constitutionality of such a delegation of authority by Congress to the States would seem to be open to serious question, at least so long as the States have not prohibited the use but only the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Thus, for example, it is argued that the Wilson law but removed an impediment to the exercise of their police powers by the States, that impediment being the incidental right which the importer has to sell the commodities imported; whereas the proposed legislation would delegate to the States a direct authority over inter-. state shipments of liquors. As Senator Knox declares: "The state power over liquor in the hands of consignees who imported them was unshackled by the Wilson Act, which was a regulation of commerce, removing the impediment to the complete exercise of state power: the impediment being the incidental right to sell. The effect of the removal of this impediment was not to permit the State to invade the federal domain by acts which in their nature and essence are acts regulating commerce, such as by seizing goods in transit, but to enable the States to freely exercise their proper powers to regulate their own internal affairs, after the interstate contract had been completed by a delivery of the goods to the consignee and after title had passed. To remove a barrier which prevented States from acting freely in their own domain is quite another matter from removing a barrier that will let them in on the federal domain."28

28 Sen. Rep. 499, 60th Cong., 1st Sess.

Upon the other hand it has been argued that, conceding the constitutionality of the Wilson law, the validity of the proposed legislation is established; that under the Wilson law Congress relinquished a portion of its control over interstate commerce, and, under the proposed legislation, would relinquish an additional portion.