holding that it is interstate commerce to transmit information over interstate telegraph lines
How later courts described this case
- holding that it is interstate commerce to transmit information over interstate telegraph lines
- presuming that words in statutory text are to be given “their natural and ordinary signification.”
- national privilege is quid pro quo for acceptance of national terms
- defining interstate commerce to include the transmission of intelligence over interstate telegraph lines
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Hunt.
I dissent, on the ground that the act of Congress was intended only to apply to telegraph lines constructed upon the public domain.
Mr. Justice Harlan did not sit in this case, nor take any part in deciding it.