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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 11, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

No Constitutional Authority.

HON. WM. C. OATES, of Alabama, speaking upon the Sunday closing proviso attached to the World's Fair appropriation in the sundry civil bill, said: “But, sir, Congress has no police power which it can exercise in the State of Illinois. Suppose that the money is voted in its present shape, accepted, and used by the Fair Association or Commission, and afterwards the conditions be not observed, would the United States have any recourse? None whatever. It absolutely has no power to enforce either of the conditions proposed. This is but another illustration of the utter want of constitutional authority for this proposed legislation. The Supreme Court in the case of United States vs. DeWitt, 9 Wallace Reports, held that an act of Congress, which is a police regulation, is without legislative authority except when it excludes territorially all State authority, as in the District of Columbia. Within State limits it can have no constitutional operation.”