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NORTH DAKOTA v. FRASER.
431

for a non-resident importer to keep a place of business in this state where intoxicating liquors are stored and kept for sale and sold, provided that the liquor thus stored and sold is in the original and unbroken package in which it was contained when shipped out of the state from which it came. This conclusion of the district court could only have been reached upon the assumption that the prohibitory liquor law of North Dakota is unconstitutional, and consequently void in so far as it prohibits the sale of imported liquor in the original cask or package in which the same is imported. In this, we think, the trial court was mistaken. Counsel for respondents, arguing in support of the judgment of the court below, cite the case of Leisy v. Hard- in, reported in 135 U.S. 100, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681, and contend that the case is decisive of the point in question. It is true that decision, when it was promulgated by the supreme court of the United States, was, with respect to the federal question involved in the case, decisive authority, and the doctrine enunciated by the decision, as the law then stood, would have profected a non- resident importer in the business of importing foreign or inter- state intoxicants and selling them in the unbroken package in this state regardless of any state law or police regulation forbid- ding such sale. The decision rests upon and interprets the pro- vision of the United States constitution, declaring that congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations — and among the several states;” the decision, in effect, holding that intoxicating liquor, when it came into the state as an article of foreign or interstate commerce, was within the limits of federal protection, and until a quantity of interstate or foreign liquor should be sold by the importer, and thus mingled with the mass of state property, it was not subject to seizure under the police regulations of any state. The court say: “Commerce between the states has been confided exclusively to congress by the constitution, and is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the state, unless placed there by congressional action.” Prior to this decision there had been no congressional action placing interstate intoxicants within reach of the police regulations of any state prior to their sale by the importer, and with respect to this the court say: “The absence of a law by congress