case, since the case must be decided before it can be classified. "Commerce" means the exchange of property, and includes the usual agencies of communication and transportation to effect the exchange. It extends to the means employed to move the property involved and the persons making the contract. Interstate commerce is the exchange of property in one State for property in another, and its essential characteristic is that it involves the moving of property from one State to another. * * A State, under its inherent and reserved police power, may enact any law promotive of the peace and good order of society, for the preservation of life and health or conducive to the comfort, convenience, and welfare of the people. It is no valid objection that such law operates on the subjects and means of interstate commerce and persons engaged therein, unless, in its effect, it lays some burdens or restrictions thereon which otherwise would not exist. Thus, States may exclude animals having contagious diseases. * They may prohibit the consolidation of competing or parallel lines of railroad. ** They may compel the erection and maintenance of fences and cattle guards. * They may compel engineers operating freight and passenger engines to have their eyes examined. * They may provide for the separation of white and colored races on trains *** and prohibit the running of freight trains on Sunday. * * * In all these cases, and many others of like character, the State laws in question operated either on subjects or means of or the persons engaged in interstate commerce, and they were sustained on the ground that they were properly within the reserved powers of the States, and did not, in their effect and intention, operate, except incidentally, as a restriction or burden on commerce between the States. These cases, and others in line with them, recognize the right of the State to adopt such laws as, in the wisdom of the Legislature, will subserve the best interests of the people and enforce them against all persons and corporations that come within the territorial jurisdiction, subject to the limitation that no restrictions or burdens shall be laid on interstate commerce. Any business corporation organized under the laws of a foreign State or country which comes into this State for the purpose of doing business becomes subject to all the laws applicable to domestic corporations engaged in the same line of business. This is illustrated by foreign insurance companies doing business in this State. They must comply with the laws of the State within which they propose to do business, in the same manner and to the same extent as domestic insurance companies. * * But for the clause of the Federal Constitution now under consideration corporations doing an interstate commerce business would stand upon the same footing and be subject to the same regulations as other corporations, either domestic or foreign. It follows that all the powers which inhere in the people of a State, and which have not been expressly granted to the United States and not prohibited to the States, still reside with the people with respect to common carriers of interstate commerce as well as to persons and companies engaged in other lines of business. The power of a State to create an administrative board and invest it with power to make reasonable rules and regulations applicable to all railroads doing business in the State has been upheld. * In the Mayes case, Mr. Justice Brown, on page 328 of 201 U. S., uses this language: "That notwithstanding the exclusive nature of this power (to regulate commerce) the States may, in the exercise of their police power, make reasonable rules with regard to the methods of carrying on interstate business, the precautions that shall be used to avoid danger, the facilities for the comfort of passengers, and the safety of freight carried, and, to a certain extent, the stations at which stoppages shall be made, is settled by repeated decisions of this Court. Of course, such rules are inoperative if conflicting with regulations on the same subject enacted by Congress, and can be supported only when consistent with the general requirement that interstate commerce shall be free and unobstructed and not amounting to a regulation of such commerce. As the power to build and operate railways and to acquire land by condemnation usually rests upon State authority, the Legislature may annex such conditions as they please with regard to intrastate transportation, and such other rules regarding interstate commerce as are not inconsistent with the general right of such commerce to be free and unobstructed." In the light of these authorities, what should be the rule in the case at bar? Here the State has created an administrative agency, called "railroad and warehouse commission." It has enjoined upon this commission certain duties, among others, to examine into the condition and management and all other matters pertaining to railroads, so far as the same concerns the relation of such roads to the public and the accommodation and security of persons doing business therewith. They are required to report such facts, statements, and explanations to the Governor once each year as will disclose the actual working of the railroad system of transportation, in their bearings upon the business and prosperity of the people. All this is, manifestly, for the purpose, in part, at least, of uncovering the necessity for such corrective legislation as the State may properly enact. How is the commission to perform these duties, unless it has some means of obtaining the necessary data upon which it can act, und such as the executive and legislative branches of the Government will require as a guide in the application of appropriate remedies? Section 6 meets this requirement and is the superstructure of the whole act. This law does not impose any tax or license on the business or the property of the company. It does not direct when or how its trains shall be run, or seek to direct, manage, or control its internal affairs. So far as this particular section is concerned, it, in effect, says: "Do your business in your own way, but report to the people of the State once a year what you have, what you are doing, and how you are doing it." This, in our opinion, is not a restriction or a burden on interstate commerce, within any rule laid down in any of the adjudged cases. If it be said that the information called for may be used as the basis of some future unconstitutional legislation, we reply that it will be time enough to meet that emergency when it arises, if it ever does. It is said in argument that, Congress having acted on this subject in the passage of the Interstate Commerce Law of 1887 and the several amendments thereto, the right of the State to legislate on that subject is gone, and the power of Congress is exclusive. This would be sound, if there was a collision between the State and Federal statutes. In such case the Federal statute would prevail over the State law; and, if the State law was a regulation of interstate commerce, it would give way under the Constitution, whether Congress had acted or not. But in a case where the state law is not repugnant to the Constitution, and is not in conflict with existing Federal legislation on the subject, we do not understand that the bare fact that Congress has assumed to act makes the powers granted to the Federal Government greater, or those reserved to the State less, than they would be without such action. In respect to subjects over which the power of Congress is exclusive, a failure to act means that the subject is to be left free ✶✶ and in regard to subjects exclusively under the control of Congress, such as the regulation of interstate commerce, but which are at the same time and within certain limitations subject to the police regulations of the State, then the State regulation is only void in the particulars wherein it conflicts with the Federal law on the subject. There is no conflict between section 6 and the Federal law on the same subject. Section 20 of the Interstate Commerce Law requires a report to the Interstate Commerce Commission, substantially the same as required by our statute. The similiarity is, indeed, so striking as to suggest that the one might have been modeled after the other. The section of the statute is free from the objection that it is void under the pro visions of the Constitution relating to commerce or as being in conflict with the Federal law. Respondents have argued some other matters of minor importance, but none of them, in our view, afford any reason for sustaining the demurrer. The facts alleged in the petition show a clear right to the writ. The demurrer will therefore be overruled, and a peremptory writ of mandamus awarded. Writ awarded. NOTE: The right to navigate does not include the privilege to use free of tolls the canal constructed by a State. Samuel Veazie et al. v. Wyman B. S. Moor, (1852) 55 Ú. S. 114. SECTION 2. COMMERCE WHICH IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION PAUL v. VIRGINIA (1869) 75 U. S. (8 Wall.) 168, 182; 19 L. Ed. 357. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE STATE OF VIRGINIA Insurance is not "commerce" within the meaning of the Commerce Clause. The plaintiff, agent in Virginia of several companies incorporated in New York, was convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine for acting in Virginia as such agent without complying with a requirement of a statute of Virginia that he should take out a license, and as a preliminary thereto deposit with the treasurer of the State certain bonds, to a large amount. [Part of opinion omitted.] Mr. Justice FIELD: We proceed to the second objection urged to the validity of the Virginia statute, which is founded upon the commercial clause of the Constitution. It is undoubtedly true, as stated by counsel, that the power conferred upon Congress to regulate commerce includes as well commerce carried on by corporations as commerce carried on by indivduals. At the time of the formation of the Constitution a large part of the commerce of the world was carried on by corporations. The East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Hamburgh Company, the Levant Company, and the Virginia Company, may be named among the many corporations then in existence which acquired, from the extent of their opera tions, celebrity throughout the commercial world. This state of facts forbids the supposition that it was intended in the grant of power to Congress to exclude from its control the commerce of corporations. The language of the grant makes no reference to the instrumentalities by which commerce may be carried on; it is general, and includes alike commerce by individuals, partnerships, associations, and corporations. There is, therefore, nothing in the fact that the insurance companies of New York are corporations to impair the force of the argument of counsel. The defect of the argument lies in the char acter of their business. Issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce. The policies are simple contracts of indemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the corporations and the assured, for a consideration paid by the latter. These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of the word. They are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the market as something having an existence and value independent of the parties to them. They are not commodities to be shipped or forwarded from one State to another, and then put up for sale. They are like other personal contracts between parties which are completed by their signature and the transfer of the consideration. Such contracts are not inter-state transactions, though the parties may be domiciled in different States. The policies do not take effect-are not executed contracts-until delivered by the agent in Virginia. They are, then, local transactions, and are governed by the local law. They do not constitute a part of the commerce between the States any more than a contract for the purchase and sale of goods in Virginia by a citizen of New York whilst in Virginia would constitute a portion of such commerce. "In Nathan v. Louisiana, 8 Howard, 73, this Court held that a law of that State imposing a tax on money and exchange brokers, who dealt entirely in the purchase and sale of foreign bills of exchange, was not in conflict with the constitutional power of Congress to regulate commerce. If foreign bills of exchange may thus be the subject of State regulation, much more so may contracts of insurance against loss by fire. |