QUARANTINE LAWS.
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reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others.** ^ Police laws may be described as laws which determine what limi- tations upon the conduct of each member of society shall be im- posed for the protection of the rights of others. The expression " police power " has acquired a technical meaning in our constitu- tional law, and can hardly be said to embrace legislation upon Government institutions, public works, and like matters, — subjects which have been assigned to the police power by constitutional jurists,^ and even by our Supreme Court.^ Such subjects have generally been assigned in our treatises and decisions upon con- stitutional law to the power of taxation. It is advantageous to adopt as definite a conception as Mr. Tiedeman's : " The police power of the Government, as understood in the constitutional law of the United States, is simply the power of the Government to establish provisions for the enforcement of the common, as well as civil, law maxim, sic utere tuo ut alienum non ladas^^ A few judicial descriptions of the police power follow : " The police power of the State comprehends all those general laws of internal regulation which are necessary to secure the peace, good order, health, and comfort of society."* "This police power of the State extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, com- fort, and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the State." ^ By this power, "persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State."
If the conception of the police power just advanced be the true one, it follows that the police power which belongs to undivided sovereignty has been distributed by the Constitution, a portion being granted to the United States, and a much greater portion being left to the States.' Express grants of police power were the powers given to Congress to provide for the punishment of
1 Coolcy, Const. Lim. (5th cd.) 706. « Ti^deman, Lim. of Police Power, 3, 4.
» Barbierz/. ConoUy, 113 U. S. 27, 31 (1884); New Orleans Gas. Co. v. Louisiana Gas Light Co., 115 U. S. 650. 661 (1885).
- Lim. of Police Power, 4; preface, vii.
- Chancellor Bates in P., W &B. R.R, Co. v. Bowers, 4 Houst. 506, 536 (1873).
To the same effect, Lake View v. Rose Hill Cem. Co., 70 111. 190, 193.
- Redfield, C. J., in Thorpe v. R. & B. R. Co., 27 Vt. 140, 149, 150, — a leading case
See also Com. v. Alger, 7 Cash. 53 (1851).
» Compare Cooley, Const. Lim. (5th ed.) 724, *586.
