while power does not exist with the whole people to control rights that are purely and exclusively private, government may require 'each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another.' But by whom, or by what authority, is it to be determined whether the manufacture of particular articles of drink, either for general use or for the personal use of the maker, will injuriously affect the public? Power to determine such questions, so as to bind all, must exist somewhere; else society will be at the mercy of the few, who, regarding only their own appetites or passions, may be willing to imperil the peace and security of the many, provided only they are permitted to do as they please. Under our system that power is lodged with the legislative branch of the government. It belongs to that department to exert what are known as the police powers of the state, and to determine, primarily, what measures are appropriate or needful for the protection of the public morals, the public health, or the public safety.
It does not at all follow that every statute enacted ostensibly for the promotion of these ends is to be accepted as a legitimate exertion of the police powers of the state. There are, of necessity, limits beyond which legislation cannot rightfully go. While every possible presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of a statute, (Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 718,) the courts must obey the constitution rather than the law-making department of government, and must, upon their own responsibility, determine whether, in any particular case, these limits have been passed. 'To what purpose,' it was said in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, 167, 'are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation.' The courts are not bound by mere forms, nor are they to be misled by mere pretenses. They are at liberty, indeed, are under a solemn duty, to look at the substance of things, whenever they enter upon the inquiry whether the legislature has transcended the limits of its authority.
If, therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby give effect to the constitution.
Keeping in view these principles, as governing the relations of the judicial and legislative departments of government with each other, it is difficult to perceive any ground for the judiciary to declare that the prohibition by Kansas of the manufacture or sale, within her limits, of intoxicating liquors for general use there as a beverage, is not fairly adapted to the end of protecting the community against the evils which confessedly result from the excessive use of ardent spirits.
There is no justification for holding that the state, under the guise merely of police regulations, is here aiming to deprive the citizen of his constitutional rights; for we cannot shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all, that the public health, the public morals, and the public safety, may be endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact established by statistics accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, p uperism, and crime existing in the country, are, in some degree at least, traceable to this evil. If, therefore, a state deems the absolute prohibition of the manufacture and sale within her limits, of intoxicating liquors, for other than medical, scientific, and mechanical purposes, to be necessary to the peace and security of society, the courts cannot, without usurping legislative functions, override the will of the people as thus expressed by their chosen representatives. They have nothing to do with the mere policy of legislation. Indeed, it is a fundamental principle in our institutions, indispensable to the preservation of public liberty, that one of the separate departments of government shall not usurp powers committed by the constitution to another department. And so, if, in the judgment of the legislature, the manufacture of intoxicating liquors for the maker's own use, as a beverage, would tend to cripple, if it did not defeat, the efforts to guard the community against the evils attending the excessive use of such liquors, it is not for the courts, upon their views as to what is best and safest for the community, to disregard the legislative determination of that question. So far from such a regulation having no relation to the general end sought to be accomplished, the entire scheme of prohibition, as embodied in the constitution and laws of Kansas, might fail, if the right of each citizen to manufacture intoxicating liquors for his own use as a beverage were recognized. Such a right does not inhere in citizenship. Nor can it be said that government interferes with or impairs any one's constitutional rights of liberty or of property, when it determines that the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks, for general or individual use, as a beverage, are, or may become, hurtful to society, and constitute, therefore, a business in which no one may lawfully engage. Those rights are best secured, in our government, by the observance, upon the part of all, of such regulations as are established by competent authority to promote the common good. No one may rightfully do that which the law-making power, upon reasonable grounds, declares to be prejudicial to the general welfare.
This conclusion is unavoidable, unless the fourteenth amendment of the constitution takes from the states of the Union those powers of police that were reserved at the time the original constitution was adopted. But this court has declared, upon full consideration, Barbier v. Connolly
113 U. S. 31, that the fourteenth amendment had no such effect. After observing, among other things, that that amendment forbade the arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, and the arbitrary spoliation of property, and secured equal protection to all under like circumstances, in respect as well to their personal and civil rights as to their acquisition and enjoyment of property, the court said: 'But neither the amendment, broad and comprehensive as it is, nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of the state, sometimes termed 'its police power,' to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the state, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity.' Undoubtedly the state, when providing, by legislation, for the protection of the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, is subject to the paramount authority of the constitution of the United States, and may not violate rights secured or guarantied by that instrument, or interfere with the execution of the powers confided to the general government. Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259; Railroad v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465; Gas-Light Co. v. Light Co.,
115 U. S. 650, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 252; Walling v. Michigan,
116 U. S. 446, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 454; Yick Wo v. Hopkins,
118 U. S. 356, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1064; Steam-Ship Co. v. Board f Health,
118 U. S. 455, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1114.
Upon this ground, if we do not misapprehend the position of defendants, it is contended that, as the primary and principal use of beer is as a beverage; as their respective breweries were erected when it was lawful to engage in the manufacture of beer for every purpose; as such establishments will become of no value as property, or, at least, will be materially diminished in value, if not employed in the manufacture of beer for every purpose,—the prohibition upon their being so employed is, in effect, a taking of property for public use without compensation, and depriving the citizen of his property without due process of law. In other words, although the state, in the exercise of her police powers, may lawfully prohibit the manufacture and sale, within her limits, of intoxicating liquors to be used as a beverage, legislation having that object in view cannot be enforced against those who, at the time, happen to own property, the chief value of which consists in its fitness for such manufacturing purposes, unless compensation is first made for the diminution in the value of their property, resulting from such prohibitory enactments.
This interpretation of the fourteenth amendment is inadmissible. It cannot be supposed that the states intended, by adopting that amendment, to impose restraints upon the exercise of their powers for the protection of the safety, health, or morals of the community. In respect to contracts, the obligations of which are protected against hostile state legislation, this court in Union Co. v. Landing Co.,
111 U. S. 751, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 652, said that the state could not, by any contract, limit the exercise of her power to the prejudice of the public health and the public morals. So, in Stone v. Mississippi,
101 U. S. 816, where the constitution was invoked against the repeal by the state of a charter, granted to a private corporation, to conduct a lottery, and for which that corporation paid to the state a valuable consideration in money, the court said: 'No legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. The people themselves cannot do it, much less their servants. * * * Government is organized with a view to their preservation, and cannot divest itself of the power to provide for them.' Again, in Gas-Light Co. v. Light Co.,
115 U. S. 650, 672, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 252: 'The constitutional prohibition upon state laws impairing the obligation of contracts does not restrict the power of the state to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, as the one or the other may be involved in the execution of such contracts. Rights and privileges arising from contracts with a state are subject to regulations for the protection of the public health, the public morals, and the public safety, in the same sense, and to the same extent, as are all contracts and all property, whether owned by natural persons or corporations.'
The principal that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, was embodied, in substance, in the constitutions of nearly all, if not all, of the states at the time of the adoption of the fourteenth amendment; and it has never been regarded as incompatible with the principle, equally vital, because essential to the peace and safety of society, that all property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner's use of it shall not be injurious to the community. Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 32; Com. v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53.
