MCGUIRE
v.
THE COMMONWEALTH
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A defendant charged with violating Virginia state law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors claimed that a federal license granted under an act of Congress authorized him to conduct that trade. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's judgment, holding that the federal license conferred no right to violate state law because a specific provision of the Congressional act explicitly prohibited licenses from authorizing any trade in violation of state law.
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Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.
The court below decided that the license received under the act of Congress gave to the defendant no right to keep or sell intoxicating liquors in violation of the State law.
Whatever, might be the effect of this license as to the rights under it, in the absence of other provisions of the act of Congress — a question not involved in the case, and, therefore,.not material to be noticed — it is quite clear that it conferred no right or authority on the defendant below, and hence furnished no defence to the indictment under the law of the State.
The 67th section of the act of Congress enacts, “that no license hereinbefore provided for, if granted, shall be construed to authorize the commencement or continuation of any trade, business, occupation, or employment therein mentioned, within any State or Territory of the United States in which it is or shall be specially prohibited by the laws thereof, or in violation of the laws of any State or Territory.”
In view of this provision, it is in vain to attempt to give force or effect to the license against the State law; and hence the authority derived from it, upon which the defendant relied for his defence in the court below, fails.
The decision was against an authority set up under an act of Congress, and the case is, therefore, rightfully here under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act. But as we are of opinion the decision of the court below was right, the judgment must be affirmed.
[See the preceding case.—Rep.]
Judgment affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
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Matter of Heff, 197 U.S. 488 (U.S. 1905)…whose laws forbid its sale, and neither does a license from a State to sell liquor enable the licensee to sell without paying the tax and obtaining the license required by the Federal statute. License Cases, 5 How. 504; McGuire v. The Commonwealth, 3 Wall. 387; License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462. Now the act of 1897 is not a revenue statute, but plainly a police regulation. It will not be doubted that an act of Congress attempting as a police regulation to punish the sale of liquor by. one citizen of a State…
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Covington v. First Nat'l Bank of Covington, 198 U.S. 100 (U.S. 1905)
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Snyder v. Bettman, 190 U.S. 249 (U.S. 1903)…laws of nearly all the States. While the power of Congress to impose such taxes may never have been expressly affirmed by this court, it does not seem to have been seriously questioned, and is a legitimate inference from McGuire v. The Commonwealth, 3 Wall. 387; The License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462; Pervear v. The Commonwealth, 5 Wall. 475, and Royall v. Virginia, 116 U. S. 572, 580. See also Ould v. City of Richmond, 23 Gratt. 464; Humphreys v. City of Norfolk, 25 Gratt. 97. Conceding fully that Congress h…
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