U.S. Supreme Court

HAMILTON v. KENTUCKY DISTILLERIES & WAREHOUSE CO.

251 U.S. 146 (1919)

Decided Dec. 15, 1919.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The armistice with Germany was signed November 11, 1918. Thereafter Congress passed, and on November 21, 1918, the President approved the War- Time Prohibition Act, which provides as follows:

On October 10, 1919, the Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Company, owner of distillery warehouses and of whisky therein, brought in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Kentucky a suit against Hamilton, collector of internal revenue for that district, alleging that the above act was void or had become inoperative, and praying that he be enjoined from interfering, by reason of that act, with the usual process of  withdrawal, distribution and sale of the whisky in bond....A similar suit seeking like relief was brought on October 29, 1919, by Dryfoos, Blum & Co., in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, against Edwards, collector for that district....

The essential facts in the two cases differ in this: In the Kentucky case the whisky was stored in a distillery warehouse; the plaintiff was the maker of the whisky, had owned it prior to the passage of the act, and had, since June 30, 1919, paid the revenue tax on part of it. In the New York case the liquors were in general and special bonded warehouses, the plaintiffs were jobbers, and it does not appear when they became the owners of the liquors. Both cases come here by direct appeal. Four contentions are made in support of the relief prayed for: (1) That the act was void when enacted because it violated the Fifth Amendment; (2) that it became void before these suits were brought by reason of the passing of the war emergency; (3) that it was abrogated or repealed by the Eighteenth Amendment; (4) that by its own terms it expired before the commencement of these suits. These contentions will be considered in their order.

First. Is the act void because it takes private property for public purposes without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment? The contention is this: The Constitution did not confer police power upon Congress. Its power to regulate the liquor traffic must therefore be sought for in the implied war powers; that is, the power 'to make all laws ... necessary and proper for carrying into execution' the war powers expressly granted. Congress might under this implied power temporarily regulate the sale of liquor and, if reasonably necessary, forbid its sale in order to guard and promote the efficiency of the men composing the army and the navy and of the workers engaged in supplying them with arms, munitions, transportation and supplies. The severe restriction imposed by the act upon the disposition of liquors amounts to a taking of property, and, being uncompensated, would, at least as applied to liquors acquired before the passage of the act, exceed even the restriction held to be admissible under the broad police powers possessed by the states. Therefore, since it fails to make provision for compensation, which in every other instance Congress made when authorizing the taking or use of property for war purposes, it is void. Such is the argument of the plaintiffs below.

The war power of the United States, like its other powers and like the police power of the states, is subject to applicable constitutional limitations, but the Fifth Amendment imposes in this respect no greater limitation upon the national power than does the Fourteenth Amendment upon state power. If the nature and conditions of a restriction upon the use or disposition of property is such that a state could, under the police power, impose it consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment without making compensation, then the United States may for a permitted purpose impose a like restriction consistently with the Fifth Amendment without making compensation; for prohibition of the liquor traffic is conceded to be an appropriate means of increasing out war efficiency....

Second. Did the Act become void by the passing of the war emergency before the commencement of these suits? It is conceded that the mere cessation of hostilities under the armistice did not abridge or suspend the power of Congress to resort to prohibition of the liquor traffic as a means of increasing our war efficiency, that the support and care of the army and navy during demobilization was within the war emergency, and that, hence, the act was valid when passed. The contention is that between the date of its enactment and the commencement of these suits it had become evident that hostilities would not be resumed, that demobilization had been effected, that thereby the war emergency was removed, and that when the emergency ceased the statute became void.

To establish that the emergency has passed, statements and acts of the President and of other executive officers are adduced; some of them antedating the enactment of the statute here in question. There are statements of the President to the effect that the war has ended and peace has come, that certain war agencies and activities should be discontinued, that our enemies are impotent to renew hostilities and that the objects of the act here in question have been satisfied in the demobilization of the army and navy. It is shown that many war-time activities have been suspended, that vast quantities of war materials have been disposed of, that trade with Germany has been resumed, and that the censorship of postal, telegraphic and wire communications has been removed.

But we have also the fact that since these statements were made and these acts were done, Congress, on October 28, 1919, passed over the President's veto the National Prohibition Act, which, in making further provision for the administration of the War-Time Prohibition Act, treats the war as continuing and demobilization as incomplete; that the Senate, on November 19, 1919, refused to ratify the Treaty of Peace with Germany; that under the provisions of the Lever Act the President resumed, on October 30, 1919, the control of the fuel supply which he had relinquished partly on January 31, 1919; that he is still operating the railroads, of which control had been taken as a war measure; and that he continues to control the supply of grain and wheat flour; that he still regulates the price of sugar; that in his message to Congress on December 2, 1919, he urgently recommended the further extension for six months of the powers of the Food Administration; that as commander-in-chief he stills keeps a part of the army in enemy occupied territory and another part in Siberia; and that he has refrained from issuing the proclamation declaring the termination of demobilization for which this act provides.

The present contention may be stated thus: That notwithstanding the act was a proper exercise of the war power of Congress at the date of its approval and contains its own period of limitation-'until the conclusion of the present war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization'-the progress of events since that time had produced so great a change of conditions and there now is so clearly a want of necessity for conserving the man power of the nation, for increased efficiency in the production of arms, munitions, and supplies, that the prohibition of the sale of distilled spirits for beverage purposes can no longer be enforced, because it would be beyond the constitutional authority of Congress in the exercise of the war power to impose such a prohibition under present circumstances. Assuming that the implied power to enact such a prohibition must depend, not upon the existence of a technical state of war, terminable only with the ratification of a treaty of peace or a proclamation of peace, but upon some actual emergency or necessity arising out of the war or incident to it, still, as was said in Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 507: 'The power is not limited to victories in the field and the dispersion of the insurgent forces. It carries with it inherently the power to guard against the immediate renewal of the conflict, and to remedy the evils which have arisen from its rise and progress.'

No principle of our constitutional law is more firmly established than that this court may not, in passing upon the validity of a statute, inquire into the motives of Congress.  Nor may the court inquire into the wisdom of the legislation. Nor may it pass upon the necessity for the exercise of a power possessed, since the possible abuse of a power is not an argument against its existence.

That a statute valid when enacted may cease to have validity owing to a change of circumstances has been recognized, with respect to state laws, in several rate cases. That the doctrine is applicable to acts of Congress was conceded arguendo in Perrin v. United States and Johnson v. Gearlds....

Conceding, then, for the purposes of the present case, that the question of the continued validity of the War-Time Prohibition Act under the changed circumstances depends upon whether it appears that there is no longer any necessity for the prohibition of the sale of distilled spirits for beverage purposes, it remains to be said that on obvious grounds every reasonable intendment must be made in favor of its continuing validity, the prescribed period of limitation not having arrived; that to Congress in the exercise of its powers, not least the war power, upon which the very life of the nation depends, a wide latitude of discretion must be accorded; and that it would required a clear case to justify a court in declaring that such an act, passed for such a purpose, had ceased to have force because the power of Congress no longer continued. In view of facts of public knowledge, some of which have been referred to, that the treaty of peace had not yet been concluded, that the railways are still under national control by virtue of the war powers, that other war activities have not been brought to a close, and that it cannot even be said that the man power of the nation has been restored to a peace footing, we are unable to conclude that the act has ceased to be valid....

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