SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. Nos. 8, 9, and 10.-DECEMBER TERM, 1872. The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans, VS. The Crescent City Live-Stock, Landing, and Slaughter- Paul Esteben, L. Ruch, J. P. Rouede, W. Maylie, S. Firmberg, B. Beaubay, William Fagan, J. D. Broderick, N. Seibel, M. Lannes, J. Gitzinger, J. P. Aycock, D. Verges, The Live-Stock Dealers' and Butchers' Association of New Orleans, and Charles Cavaroc, Plaintiffs in Error, VS. The State of Louisiana, ex rel. S. Belden, Attorney The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans, VS. The Crescent City Live-Stock, Landing, and Slaughter- Mr. Justice FIELD dissenting. In error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. I am unable to agree with the majority of the court in these cases, and will proceed to state the reasons of my dissent from their judgment. The cases grow out of the act of the legislature of the State of Louisiana, entitled "An act to protect the health of the city of New Orleans, to locate the stock-landings and slaughter-houses, and to incorporate The Crescent City Live-Stock, Landing, and Slaughter-house Company,"" which was approved on the eighth of March, 1869, and went into operation on the first of June following. The act creates the corporation mentioned in its title, which is composed of seventeen persons designated by name, and invests them and their successors with the powers usually conferred upon corporations in addition to their special and exclusive privileges. It first declares that it shall not be lawful, after the first day of June, 1869, to "land, keep, or slaughter any cattle, beeves, calves, sheep, swine, or other animals, or to have, keep, or establish any stock-landing, yards, slaughter-houses, or abattoirs within the city of New Orleans or the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard," except as provided in the act; and imposes a penalty of two hundred and fifty dollars for each violation of its provisions. It then authorizes the corporation mentioned to establish and erect within the parish of St. Bernard and the corporate limits of New Orleans, below the United States barracks, on the east side of the Mississippi, or at any point below a designated railroad depot on the west side of the river, "wharves, stables, sheds, yards, and buildings, necessary to land, stable, shelter, protect, and preserve all kinds of horses, mules, cattle, and other animals," and provides that cattle and other animals, destined for sale or slaughter in the city of New Orleans or its environs, shall be landed at the landings and yards of the company, and be there yarded, sheltered, and protected, if necessary; and that the company shall be entitled to certain prescribed fees for the use of its wharves, and for each animal landed, and be authorized to detain the animals until the fees are paid, and if not paid within fifteen days to take proceedings for their sale. Every person violating any of these provisions, or landing, yarding or keeping animals elsewhere, is subjected to a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars. The act then requires the corporation to erect a grand slaughter-house of sufficient dimensions to accommodate all butchers, and in which five hundred animals may be slaughtered a day, with a sufficient number of sheds and stables for the stock received at the port of New Orleans, at the same time authorizing the company to erect other landing places and other slaughterhouses at any points consistent with the provisions of the act. The act then provides that when the slaughter-houses and accessory buildings have been completed and thrown open for use, public notice thereof shall be given for thirty days, and within that time "all other stock-landings and slaughter-houses within the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard shall be closed, and it shall no longer be lawful to slaughter cattle, hogs, calves, sheep, or goats, the meat of which is determined [destined] for sale within the parishes aforesaid,'under a penalty of one hundred dollars for each and every offence." The act then provides that the company shall receive for every animal slaughtered in its buildings certain prescribed fees, besides the head, feet, gore, and entrails of all animals except of swine. Other provisions in the act require the inspection of the animals before they are slaughtered, and allow the construction of railways to facilitate communication with the buildings of the company and the city of New Orleans. But it is only the special and exclusive privileges conferred by the act that this court has to consider in the cases before it. These privileges are granted for the period of twenty five years. Their exclusive character not only follows from the provisions I have cited, but they are declared in express terms in the act. In the third section the language is that the corporation "shall have the sole and exclusive privilege of conducting and carrying on the live-stock, landing, and slaughter-house business within the limits and privileges granted by the provisions of the act." And in the fourth section the language is, that after the first of June, 1869, the company shall have "the exclusive privilege of having landed at their landing places all animals intended for sale or slaughter in the parishes of Orleans and Jefferson," and "the exclusive privilege of having slaughtered" in its slaughter-houses all animals, the meat of which is intended for sale in these parishes. In order to understand the real character of these special privileges it is necessary to know the extent of country and of population which they affect. The parish of Orleans contains an area of country of 150 square miles; the parish of Jefferson, 384 square miles; and the parish of St. Bernard, 620 square miles. The three parishes together contain an area of 1,154 square miles, and they have a population of between two and three hundred thousand people. The plaintiffs in error deny the validity of the act in question so far as it confers the special and exclusive privileges mentioned. The first case before us was brought by an association of butchers in the three parishes against the corporation to prevent the assertion and enforcement of these privileges. The second case was instituted by the attorney-general of the state, in the name of the state, to protect the corporation in the enjoyment of these privileges, and to prevent an association of stock-dealers and butchers from acquiring a tract of land in the same district with the corporation, upon which to erect suitable buildings for receiving, keeping, and slaughtering cattle and preparing animal food for market. The third case was commenced by the corporation itself to restrain the defendants from carrying on a business similar to its own, in violation of its alleged exclusive privileges. The substance of the averments of the plaintiffs in error is this: That prior to the passage of the act in question they were engaged in the lawful and necessary business of procuring and bringing to the parishes of New Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard, animals suitable for human food, and in preparing such food for market; that in the prosecution of this business they had provided in these parishes suitable establishments for landing, sheltering, keeping, and slaughtering cattle and the sale of meat; that with their association about four hundred persons were connected, and that in the parishes named about a thousand persons were thus engaged in procuring, preparing, and selling animal food. And they complain that the business of landing, yarding, and keep ing within the parishes named, cattle intended for sale or slaughter, which was lawful for them to pursue before the first day of June, 1869, is made by that act unlawful for any one except the corporation named; and that the business of slaughtering cattle and preparinganimal food for market, which it was lawful for them to pursue in these parishes before that day, is made by that act unlwful for them to pursue afterwards, except in the buildings of the company, and upon payment of certain prescribed fees, and a surrender of a valuable portion of each animal slaughtered. And they contend that the lawful business of landing, yarding, sheltering, and keeping cattle intended for sale or slaughter, which they in common with every individual in the community of the three parishes had a right to follow, cannot be thus taken from them and given over for a period of twenty-five years to the sole and exclusive enjoyment of a corporation of seventeen persons or to anybody else. And they also contend that the lawful and necessary business of slaughtering cattle and preparing animal food for market, which they and all other individuals had a right to follow, cannot be thus restricted within this territory of 1,154 square miles to the buildings of this corporation, or be subjected to tribute for the emolument of that body. No one will deny the abstract justice which lies in the position of the plaintiffs in error; and I shall endeavor to show that the position has some support in the fundamental law of the country. It is contended in justification for the act in question that it was adopted in the interest of the city, to promote its cleanliness and protect its health, and was the legitimate exercise of what is termed the police power of the state. That power undoubtedly extends to all regulations affecting the health, good order, morals, peace, and safety of society, and is exercised on a great variety of subjects, and in almost numberless ways. All sorts of restrictions and burdens are imposed under it, and when these are not in conflict with any constitutional prohibitions, or fundamental principles, they cannot be successfully assailed in a judicial tribunal. With this power of the state and its legitimate exercise I shall not differ from the majority of the court. But under the pretence of prescribing a police regulation the state cannot be permitted to encroach upon any of the just rights of the citizen, which the Constitution intended to secure against abridgment. In the law in question there are only two provisions which can properly be called police regulations, the one which requires the lauding and slaughtering of animals below the city of New Orleans, and the other which requires the inspection of the animals before they are slaughtered. When these requirements are complied with the sanitary purposes of the act are accomplished. In all other particulars the act is a mere grant to a corporation created by it of special and exclusive privileges by which the health of the city is in no way promoted. It is plain that if the |