Argument for the American Tobacco Co. 221 U.S. Mogul Co. v. McGregor, L. R. 23 Q. B. 598, 618; Berry v. Donovan, 188 Massachusetts, 353; Barnes v. Typographical Union, 232 Illinois, 424; Barr v. Essex Trades Council, 53 N. J. Eq. 101, 124; Doremus v. Hennessey, 176 Illinois, 608; Whitwell v. Continental Tob. Co., supra. The rights of competitors as recognized at common law include the right to undersell competitors; Commonwealth v. Hunt (Mass.), 4 Metc. 111, 134; Lough v. Outerbridge, 143 N. Y. 271, 283; to have secret partners; 1 Lindley on Part. (2d Am. Ed.) * 16; Winship v. Bank, 5 Peters, 529, 562; to adopt a policy of business that can only result in destruction of weak competitors, even though a part of it is the sale of goods below cost; Lough v. Outerbridge, 143 N. Y. 271, 283; Martel v. White, 185 Massachusetts, 255; Lewis v. Lumber Co., 121 Louisiana, 658; Karges Co. v. Amalgamated Union, 165 Indiana, 421; to make provision for exclusive handling; Palmer v. Stebbins (Mass.), 3 Pick. 188, 192; In re Greene, supra; Whitwell v. Continental Tob. Co., supra; Houch v. Wright, 77 Mississippi, 476. Purchasers of competing businesses do not constitute attempts to monopolize, for such purchases do not exclude others from the trade, but leave the field open; this is true, although the inducement to purchase is to get rid of a competitor. The law of self-defense and protection applies to one's business as well as to his person. United Shoe Co. v. Kimball, 193 Massachusetts, 351; Wood v. Whitehead Bros. Co., 165 N. Y. 545, 551; United States Co. v. Provident Co., 64 Fed. Rep. 946, 950; Butt v. Ebel, 29 N. Y. App. Div. 256, 259; Lanyon v. Garden City Sand Co., 223 Illinois, 616; National Co. v. Cream City Co., 86 Wisconsin, 352. Covenants taken from a vendor not to engage in a business in competition with that sold are not only not criminal, but are altogether valid and enforceable. Cincinnati Co. v. Bay, 200 U. S. 179; Fowle v. Park, 131 U. S. 88; Navigation Co. v. Winsor, 20 Wall. 64; Electric Co. v. Hawks, 171 Massachusetts, 101. 221 U. S. Argument for the American Tobacco Co. The Sherman Law properly construed and applied is a beneficent and evolutionary statute, whose purpose and effect is to preserve to every one liberty and opportunity to engage in interstate commerce-it preserves this liberty and opportunity as against the unreasonable covenants and contracts of the party himself, as well as against the tortious conduct of others, whether those others seek in combination to exclude a stranger to the combination, or seek singly to exclude him. In other words, this statute applies to interstate trade the doctrines of the common law applicable to trade and commerce, without respect to whether interstate or not, and the words used in it are well known words at common law, which must, in the interpretation of this law, be given their common law meaning. The chief purpose of the statute was to make certain the application in the Federal jurisdiction of the principles of the common law, and to provide definite and certain remedies for the enforcement thereof. In addition to the considerations heretofore mentioned, this construction, and this construction alone, gives meaning and effect to every word of the statute: (a) The first section of the statute condemns every contract, etc., in restraint of trade the construction contended for by the Government in this case would eliminate the word "every" from the statute and makes the test dependent not upon the nature of the act, but its magnitude or result; these defendants contend that it is the nature of the act that is the test and that every transaction of the prohibited nature is forbidden, whatever its magnitude, result, or intent; (b) the second section forbids the monopolizing or attempt to monopolize of any part of interstate trade or commerce-the Government's contention as to the meaning of this second section eliminates these words from the statute or substitutes for them the words "in large part," or "a dominating part"; the construction contended for by these defendants gives full force to the mean Argument for the American Tobacco Co. 221 U.S. ing "any part"-it is a violation of the statute to exclude or attempt to exclude by tortious means a trader from even the smallest part of interstate trade or commerce. An additional argument in favor of the construction of the statute here contended for is seen when the remedy is considered. The court below, construing the statute as contended for by the Government, said that it condemned that incidental elimination of competition which comes from ordinary consolidation, sale, and purchase; in order to give vitality to such construction there are involved two grave constitutional questions: First: Is there a constitutional power in Congress to forbid the ordinary transactions that have characterized all commercial peoples, and that are unquestionably valid at common law? Second: Has Congress the constitutional power to prevent a state corporation from engaging in interstate commerce in wholesome products? These defendants believe that these two questions should be each answered in the negative; Congress has no right under its authority to regulate commerce, great and paramount as that power is, to violate the fundamental rights secured by other provisions of the Constitution.. Monongahela Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 336; Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, 180; Allgcyer Case, 165 U. S. 578, 589, 591. Congress has not a right to forbid corporations or natural persons from engaging in interstate commerce in wholesome products— the right of intercourse between State and State derives its source from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world-the Constitution found it an existing right and gave to Congress only the power to regulate it. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 211; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168. Corporations have this right as certainly and as thoroughly as natural persons. Santa Clara County v. R. R., 118 U. S. 394, 396; Justice Field at Circuit in Railroad Tax Cases, 13 Fed. Rep. 722, 746; Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 76, 85. The Lottery 221 U.S. Argument for the Imperial Tobacco Co. Case, 188 U. S. 321, is not in conflict with this contention, because it was based on the inherent vicious nature of the commodity involved, to-wit, lottery tickets. It is well settled that if a statute be susceptible of two interpretations, by one of which it would be unconstitutional or of doubtful constitutional validity, and by the other valid, the latter construction should be adopted. Commodities Case, 213 U. S. 366. The court below, however, having construed the Sherman Anti-Trust Law as forbidding the elimination of competition that results incidentally from sale, purchase and consolidation, resolved these two grave constitutional questions against the defendants, and, under the language of a statute which authorizes a court to restrain and enjoin only "violations of the Act," restrained and enjoined the assumed violators of the act from all interstate activity. It is practicable for a court to "prevent and restrain" the making or the continued operation of an executory contract or conspiracy, or combination in the nature of a contract or conspiracy; and it is practicable for a court to prevent and restrain a practice which involves monopolizing tradetortiously excluding or attempting to exclude strangers to the scheme contemplated; these are the things condemned by the Sherman Law; it is not practicable nor constitutional to prevent or restrain the purchaser of private property from the use of his property, or penalize such use by preventing his engaging in interstate commerce in wholesome articles. The impracticability of constitutional remedy demonstrates the unsoundness of the construction of the act contended for by the Government. Mr. William B. Hornblower, with whom Mr. John Pickrell, Mr. William W. Miller, and Mr. Morgan M. Mann, were on the brief for appellee, the Imperial Tobacco Company: By far the greater part of the testimony taken in this Argument for the Imperial Tobacco Co. 221 U. S. cause has to do with the alleged combinations entered into by the American Tobacco Company and its allied companies in this country, with which the Imperial Company and the British-American Company have no concern. It is claimed, however, by the Government that certain contracts entered into by the Imperial Company in 1902 with the American Company were in violation of the Sherman Act, and that the transactions of the Imperial Company since that date have been in violation of the act. These contracts were entered into in England in the summer of 1902 for the purpose of putting an end to the ruinous competition which was being carried on in England by the Ogdens Limited owned by the American Company. The court below was right in dismissing the bill as to the Imperial Company and as to the British-American Tobacco Company, on the ground that those companies were British companies, that the contracts to which they were parties were made in Great Britain and were valid under the laws of Great Britain, and that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act has no extraterritorial effect. American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347. The agreements of September 27, 1902, between the American Tobacco Company and the Imperial Tobacco Company were not in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. So far as those agreements operated to restrain trade in Great Britain or between Great Britain and countries other than the United States, they are not within the prohibition of the Sherman Act. So far as they operate to restrain trade between England and this country, or between the various States of this country, such restraint is merely incidental to the sale of certain plants and good will, and is not within the prohibition of the Sherman Act. The principle that there are certain contracts in partial restraint of trade which would not be invalid at common law, and which do not come within the prohibition of the Sherman Act, has been recognized by this court in the |