126 Ga. 644 | Ga. | 1906
In Hennington v. State, 90 Ga. 396, it was held that §4578 of the Code of 1882 (Penal Code §420), making it a misdemeanor to run a freight-train upon any railroad in this State on the Sabbath day, was a regulation of internal police, and not a regulation of commerce, and was, therefore, not in conflict with the provision in the constitution of the United States delegating to Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several States. This decision was rendered in 1892, and, upon writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States,, the ruling was affirmed by that court. Hennington v. State of Georgia, 163 U. S. 299. It was said by that court that there is nothing in the legislation in question that suggests that it was enacted with the purpose to regulate interstate commerce, or with any other purpose than to prescribe a rule of civil duty for all who on the Sabbath day were in the territorial jurisdiction of the State; that while the statute affects interstate commerce in a limited degree, it is not for that reason a needless intrusion upon the domain of federal jurisdiction, nor
Since that decision was rendered, an act has been passed by the General Assembly (Acts 1897, p. 38) declaring that the law prohibiting the running of freight-trains on Sunday should not apply to a train carrying freight on a line of railroad which begins and ends in another Statp, and does not run a greater distance than three miles in this State; and the amending act has been amended by extending the distance in this State to thirty miles (Acts 1899, p. 88). It was argued that even if the Hennington case was correctly decided, it is controlling only upon the statute as it existed at the time that decision was rendered, and that the effect of the amendatory acts just referred to is to make a discrimination against those railroads whose lines in Georgia are longer than thirty miles. It is unnecessary for us to determine in the present case whether the effect of these amendatory acts is to bring about such a discrimination as would either render the amending acts void, or have any effect upon the original statute, or in any way impair the force of that statute with reference to .trains not embraced within the terms of the amending acts. A careful examination of the assignments of error which are contained in the motion for new trial discloses that none of them were sufficient to raise a question of this character for decision by the lower court. The questions decided by the lower court were those which were raised by the three requests to charge which are embodied in the statement of facts, and the general
Judgment affirmed.