Opinion of the Court. carrier a sum for elevating beyond the rate fixed therefor by the statute. The Court of Appeals, in its opinion in the Budd case, considered fully the question as to whether the legislature had power, under the constitution of the State of New York, to prescribe a maximum charge for elevating grain by stationary elevators, owned by individuals or corporations who had appropriated their property to that use and were engaged in that business; and it answered the inquiry in the affirmative. It also reviewed the case of Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, and arrived at the conclusion that this court there held that the legislation in question in that case was a lawful exercise of legislative power, and did not infringe that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which provides that no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law;" and that the legislation in question in that case was similar to, and not distinguishable in principle from, the act of the State of New York. In regard to Munn v. Illinois, the Court of Appeals said that the question in that case was raised by an individual owning an elevator and warehouse in Chicago, erected for, and in connection with which he had carried on, the business of elevating and storing grain, many years prior to the passage of the act in question, and prior also to the adoption of the amendment to the constitution of Illinois in 1870, declaring all elevators and warehouses, where grain or other property is stored for a compensation, to be public warehouses. The Court of Appeals then cited the cases of People ex rel. etc. v. B. & A. R. R. Co., 70 N. Y. 569; Bertholf v. O'Reilly, 74 N. Y. 509; B. E. S. R. R. Co. v. B. S. R. R. Co., 111 N. Y. 132; and People v. King, 110 N. Y. 418, as cases in which Munn v. Illinois had been referred to by it, and said that it could not overrule and disregard Munn v. Illinois without subverting the principle of its own decision in People v. King, and certainly not without disregarding many of its deliberate expressions in approval of the principle of Munn v. Illinois. The Court of Appeals further examined the question whether Opinion of the Court. the power of the legislature to regulate the charge for elevating grain, where the business was carried on by individuals upon their own premises, fell within the scope of the police power, and whether the statute in question was necessary for the public welfare. It affirmed that, while no general power resided in the legislature to regulate private business, prescribe the conditions under which it should be conducted, fix the price of commodities or services or interfere with freedom of contract, and while the merchant, manufacturer, artisan and laborer, under our system of government, are left to pursue and provide for their own interests in their own way, untrammelled by burdensome and restrictive regulations, which, however common in rude and irregular times, are inconsistent with constitutional liberty, yet there might be special conditions and circumstances which brought the business of elevating grain within principles which, by the common law and the practice of free governments, justified legislative control and regulation in the particular case, so that the statute would be constitutional; that the control which, by common law and by statute, was exercised over common carriers, was conclusive upon the point that the right of the legislature to regulate the charges for services in connection with the use of property did not depend in every case upon the question whether there was a legal monopoly, or whether special governmental privileges or protection had been bestowed; that there were elements of publicity in the business of elevating grain which peculiarly affected it with a public interest; that those elements were found in the nature and extent of the business, its relation to the commerce of the State and country, and the practical monopoly enjoyed by those engaged in it; that about 120,000,000 bushels of grain come annually to Buffalo from the West; that the business of elevating grain at Buffalo is connected mainly with lake and canal transportation; that the grain received at New York in 1887 by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River, during the season of canal navigation, exceeded 46,000,000 bushels, an amount very largely in excess of the grain received during the same period by rail and by river and coastwise vessels; that the elevation of that grain from lake vessels to canal-boats Opinion of the Court. takes place at Buffalo, where there are thirty or forty elevators, stationary and floating; that a large proportion of the surplus cereals of the country passes through the elevators at Buffalo and finds its way through the Erie Canal and Hudson River to the seaboard at New York, whence it is distributed to the markets of the world; that the business of elevating grain is an incident to the business of transportation, the elevators being indispensable instrumentalities in the business of the common carrier, and in a broad sense performing the work of carriers, being located upon or adjacent to the waters of the State, and transferring the cargoes of grain from the lake vessels to the canal-boats, or from the canal-boats to the ocean vessels, and thereby performing an essential service in transportation; that by their means the transportation of grain by water from the upper lakes to the seaboard is rendered possible; that the business of elevating grain thus has a vital relation to commerce in one of its most important aspects; that every excessive charge made in the course of the transportation of grain is a tax upon commerce; that the public has a deep interest that no exorbitant charges shall be exacted at any point, upon the business of transportation; and that whatever impaired the usefulness of the Erie Canal as a highway of commerce involved the public interest. The Court of Appeals said that, in view of the foregoing exceptional circumstances, the business of elevating grain was affected with a public interest, within the language of Lord Chief Justice Hale, in his treatise De Portibus Maris, (Harg. Law Tracts, 78;) that the case fell within the principle which permitted the legislature to regulate the business of common carriers, ferrymen and hackmen, and interest on the use of money; that the underlying principle was, that business of certain kinds holds such a peculiar relation to the public interest that there is superinduced upon it the right of public regulation; and that the court rested the power of the legislature to control and regulate elevator charges upon the nature and extent of the business, the existence of a virtual monopoly, the benefit derived from the Erie Canal's creating the business and making it possible, the interest to trade and commerce, Opinion of the Court. the relation of the business to the property and welfare of the State, and the practice of legislation in analogous cases, collectively creating an exceptional case and justifying legislative regulation. The opinion further said that the criticism to which the case of Munn v. Illinois had been subjected proceeded mainly upon a limited and strict construction and definition of the police power; that there was little reason, under our system of government, for placing a close and narrow interpretation on the police power, or restricting its scope so as to hamper the legislative power in dealing with the varying necessities. of society and the new circumstances as they arise calling for legislative intervention in the public interest; and that no serious invasion of constitutional guarantees by the legislature could withstand for a long time the searching influence of public opinion, which was sure to come sooner or later to the side of law, order and justice, however it might have been swayed for a time by passion or prejudice, or whatever aberrations might have marked its course. We regard these views which we have referred to as announced by the Court of Appeals of New York, so far as they support the validity of the statute in question, as sound and just. In Munn v. Illinois, the constitution of Illinois, adopted in 1870, provided in article 13, section 1, as follows: "All elevators or storehouses, where grain or other property is stored for a compensation, whether the property stored be kept separated or not, are declared to be public warehouses;" and the act of the legislature of Illinois approved April 25, 1871, (Public Laws of Illinois, of 1871-72, p. 762,) divided public warehouses into three classes, prescribed the taking of a license and the giving of a bond, and fixed a maximum charge, for warehouses belonging to class A, for storing and handling grain, including the cost of receiving and delivering, and imposed a fine on conviction for not taking the license or not giving the bond. Munn and Scott were indicted, convicted and fined for not taking out the license and not giving the bond, and for charging rates for storing and handling grain Opinion of the Court. higher than those established by the act. Section 6 of the act provided that it should be the duty of every warehouseman of class A to receive for storage any grain that might be tendered to him. Munn and Scott were the managers and lessees of a public warehouse, such as was named in the statute. The Supreme Court of Illinois having affirmed the judgment of conviction against them, on the ground that the statute of Illinois was a valid and constitutional enactment, Munn v. People, 69 Illinois, 80, they sued out a writ of error from this court, and contended that the provisions of the sections of the statute of Illinois which they were charged with having violated were repugnant to the third clause of § 8 of article 1, and the sixth clause of § 9 of article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, and to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of that Constitution. This court, in Munn v. Illinois, the opinion being delivered by Chief Justice Waite, and there being a published dissent by only two justices, considered carefully the question of the repugnancy of the Illinois statute to the Fourteenth Amendment. It said, that under the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty, "the government regulates the conduct of its citizens one towards another, and the manner in which each shall use his own property, when such regulation becomes necessary for the public good;" and that, "in their exercise it has been customary in England from time immemorial, and in this country from its first colonization, to regulate ferries, common carriers, hackmen, bakers, millers, wharfingers, inn-keepers, etc., and in so doing to fix a maximum of charge to be made for services rendered, accommodations furnished, and articles sold." It was added: "To this day, statutes are to be found in many of the States upon some or all these subjects; and we think it has never yet been successfully contended that such legislation came within any of the constitutional prohibitions against interference with private property." It announced as its conclusions that, down to the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was not supposed that statutes regulating the use, or even the price of the use, of private property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due |