322 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. the Slaughter-Hotise Cases, Mr. Justice Field, in delivering a con- curring opinion, took occasion to say: — " The first section of the Amendment is stripped of all its protective force if its application be limited to the privileges and immunities of citi- zens of the United States as distinguished from citizens of the States, and thus its prohibition be extended only to the abridgment or impairment of such rights as the right to come to the seat of government, . . . which are specified in the opinion in the Slaughter-House cases as the special rights of such citizens." Mr. Justice Bradley in the same case says: — . " I hold that the liberty of pursuit — the right to follow any of the ordi- nary callings of life — is one of the privileges of a citizen of the United States." Again the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States have sought to belittle the effect of the Fourteenth Amendment by magnifying the Police Powers so called of the States, and placing the same in a considerable degree above the Constitutional provis- ions contained in that Amendment. We have a striking instance of this in Powell v. Pennsylvania,^ one of the Oleomargarine Cases. But even in this case the Court recognized a limit to the power of the State. Mr. Justice Harlan says: — " Nevertheless, if the incompatibility of the Constitution and the statute is clear or palpable, the courts must give effect to the former. And such would be the duty of the court if the State legislature, under the pretence of guarding the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, should invade the rights of life, liberty, or property, or other rights secured by the supreme law of the land." The language of Professor Thayer on this point Is very perti- nent: "As regards the Fourteenth Amendment it had for its main purpose that of cutting down the local legislative power of the States, their * police power,' and conferring on the General Government the right to restrain them in exercising it."^ Slow as the United States Supreme Court has been to interfere in behalf of the citizens of the States when oppressed by State legislation, the power to Interfere must be now considered as well established. See Chicago, &c. Railway Co. v. Minnesota,^ where 1 127 U. S. 678 (1887). 2 Thayer's Cases on Constitutional Law, Part II. p. 742, note. » 134 U. S. 418.
