this purpose are appropriate, are stringent, and effectual. But it is said that, in creating a corporation for this purpose and conferring upon it exclusive privileges - which it is said constitute a monopoly the legislature has exceeded its power. If this statute had imposed on the city of New Orleans precisely the same duties, accompanied by the same privileges, which it has on the corporation which it created, it is believed that no question would have been raised as to its constitutionality. In that case the effect on the butchers' pursuit of their occupation and on the public would have been the same as it is now. Why cannot the legislature confer the same powers on another corporation, created for a lawful and useful public object, that it can on the municipal corporation already existing? That wherever a legislature has the right to accomplish a certain result, and that result is best attained by means of a corporation, it has the right to create such a corporation, and to endow it with the power necessary to effect the desired and lawful purpose, seems hardly to admit of debate. The proposition is ably discussed and affirmed in the case of McCulloch v. State of Maryland in relation to the power of Congress to organize the bank of the United States to aid in the fiscal operations of the government.

"Unless, therefore, it can be maintained that the exclusive privileges granted by this charter for the corporation, is beyond the power of the legislature of Louisiana, there can be no just exception to the validity of the statute. And in this respect we are not able to see that these privileges are especially odious or objectionable. The duty imposed as a consideration for the privilege is well defined, and its enforcement well guarded. The prices or charges to be made by the company are limited by the statute, and we are not advised that they are on the whole exorbitant or unjust."

"The proposition is, therefore, reduced to these terms: Can any exclusive privilege be granted to any of its

citizens, or to a corporation, by the legislature of the State?

"But it is to be observed, that all such references are to monopolies established by the monarch in derogation of the rights of the subjects, or arise out of transactions in which the people were unrepresented and their interests uncared for. The great Case of Monopolies, reported by Coke, and so fully stated in the brief, was undoubtedly a contest of the Commons against the monarch. The decision is based upon the ground that it was against common law and the argument was aimed at the unlawful assumption of power by the crown; for whoever doubted the authority of Parliament to change or modify the common law? The discussion in the House of Commons cited from Macaulay clearly establishes that the contest was between the crown and the people represented in Parliament.

"But we think it may be safely affirmed that the Parliament of Great Britain, representing the people in their legislative functions, and the legislative bodies of this country, have from time immemorial to the present day, continued to grant to persons and corporations privileges — privileges denied to other citizens-privileges which come within any just definition of the word monopoly, as much as those now under consideration; and that the power to do this has never been questioned or denied. Nor can it be truthfully denied that some of the most useful and beneficial enterprises set on foot for the general good, have been made successful by means of these exclusive rights, and could only have been conducted to success in that way.

"It may, therefore, be considered as established, that the authority of the legislature of Louisiana to pass the present statute is ample, unless some restraint in the exercise of that power be found in the constitution of that State, or in the amendments to the constitution of the United States." "The statute under consideration defines these localities, and forbids slaughtering in any other. It does not, as has

been asserted, prevent the butcher from doing his own slaughtering. On the contrary, the Slaughter-House Company is required, under a heavy penalty, to permit any person who wishes to do so, to slaughter in their houses; and they are bound to make ample provision for the convenience of all the slaughtering for the entire city. The butcher then is still permitted to slaughter, to prepare and to sell his own meats; but he is required to slaughter at a specified place and to pay a reasonable compensation for the use of the accommodations furnished him at that place. The wisdom of the monopoly granted by the Legislature may be open to question, but it is difficult to see a justification for the assertion that the butchers are deprived of the right to labor in their occupation, or the people of their daily service in preparing food, or how this statute, with the duties and guards imposed upon the company, can be said to destroy the business of the butcher, or seriously interfere with its pursuit." 99 1

1 Opinion of J. Miller in Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36. C. J. Chase and JJ. Field, Swayne and Bradley, dissent. In delivering his dissenting opinion, Justice Field said: "By the act of Louisiana, within the three parishes named, a territory exceeding one thousand one hundred square miles, and embracing over two hundred thousand persons, every man who pursues the business of preparing animal food for market must take his animals to the buildings of the favored company and must perform his work in them, and for the use of the buildings must pay a prescribed tribute to the company, and leave with it a valuable portion of each animal slaughtered. Every man in these parishes who has a horse or other animal for sale, must carry him to the yards and stables of the company, and for their use pay a like tribute. He is not allowed to do his work in his own buildings or take his animals to his own stables, or keep them in his own yards, even though they should be erected in the same district as the buildings, stables and yards of the company, and that district embraces over eleven hundred square miles. The prohibitions imposed by this act upon butchers and dealers in cattle in these parishes, and the special privileges conferred upon the favorite corporation, are similar in principle and as odious in character as the restrictions imposed in the last century upon the peasantry in some parts of France, where, as says a French writer, the peasant was prohibited to 'hunt on his own lands, to fish in his own waters, to grind at his own mill, to

This is not the only case in which the right of the government to create such a monopoly has been sustained. In Iowa, a law was sustained, which granted to private individ

cook at his own oven, to dry his clothes on his own machines, to whet his instruments at his own grindstone, to make his own wine, his oil and his cider at his own press, * or to sell his commodities at the

public markets. The exclusive right of all these privileges was vested in the lords of the vicinage. The history of the most execrable tyranny of ancient times,' says the same writer, 'offers nothing like this. This category of oppressions cannot be applied to a free man, or to the peasant, except in violation of his rights.'

"But if the exclusive privileges conferred upon the Louisiana corporation be sustained, it is not perceived why exclusive privileges for the construction and keeping of ovens, machines, grindstones, wine presses, and for all the numerous trades and pursuits for the prosecution of which buildings are required, may not be equally bestowed upon other corporations or private individuals and for periods of indefinite duration. * * This equality of right, with exemption from all disparaging and partial enactments, in the lawful pursuits of life, throughout the whole country, is the distinguishing privilege of citizens of the United States. To them, everywhere, all pursuits, all professions, all avocations are open without other restrictions than such as are imposed equally upon all others of the same age, sex, and condition. The State may prescribe such regulations for every pursuit and calling of life as will promote the public health, secure the good order and advance the general prosperity of society, but when once prescribed, the pursuits or calling must be free to be followed by every citizen who is within the conditions designated, and will conform to the regulations. This is the fundamental idea upon which our institutions rest, and unless adhered to in the legislation of the country our government will be a republic only in name.

*

"The keeping of a slaughter-house is part of, and incidental to, the trade of a butcher- one of the ordinary occupations of human life. To compel a butcher, or rather all the butchers of a large city and an exten- · sive district, to slaughter their cattle in another person's slaughter-house and pay him a toll therefor, is such a restriction upon the trade, as materially to interfere with its prosecution. It is onerous, unreasonable, arbitrary and unjust. It has none of the qualities of a police regulation. If it were really a police regulation, it would undoubtedly be within the power of the legislature. That portion of the act which requires all slaughter-houses to be located below the city, and to be subjected to inspection, etc., is clearly a police regulation. That portion which allows no one but the favored company to build, own, or have slaughter-houses is not a police regulation, and has not the faintest semblance of one."

uals the exclusive right to erect and maintain a public market in which all vendors of fresh meat and vegetables were required to ply their trade. And in Louisiana it was held that, not only may the municipality of New Orleans grant to private persons the exclusive privilege of erecting and maintaining a public market, in partnership with the city, but that the city council cannot legislate in respect to the regulation of the markets, without consulting the partners, where the regulation is likely to affect the financial interest of the partnership. So, also, it has been held in Kansas, that a law is not unconstitutional which restricts the sale of liquors to druggists and for special purposes. On the other hand, in an early case in New York, it was declared to be unconstitutional to prohibit persons in general the manufacture of pressed hay in the thickly settled parts of a city, on account of the danger of fire, and grant to one or more the exclusive privilege of engaging in that business within the prohibited district. The court says:

"If the manufacture of pressed hay within the compact parts of the city is dangerous in causing or promoting fires, the common council have the power expressly given by their charter to prevent the carrying on of such manufacture; but as all by-laws must be reasonable, the common council can not make a by-law which shall permit one person to carry on the dangerous business and prohibit another who has an equal right from pursuing the same business."4

In a case parallel with the slaughter-house cases of Louisiana, the city of Chicago passed an ordinance designating certain buildings for slaughtering all animals intended for sale or consumption in the city, the owners of the buildings

1 Le Claire v. Davenport, 13 Iowa, 210, overruling Davenport v. Kelly,

7 Iowa, 109, 110. See the dissenting opinion in the latter case.

2 New Orleans v. Guillotte, 12 La. Ann. 818.

3 Intoxicating Liquor Cases, 25 Kan. 751 (37 Am. Rep. 284). See In re Ruth, 32 Iowa, 253.

4 Mayor City of Hudson v. Thorne, 7 Paige, 261.