—upholding a municipal ordinance specifying that the city use a particular kind of asphalt in paving city streets

—upheld in the face of a Commerce Clause challenge local governmental contracts that mandated the purchase of out-of-state materials.

"In this day of multiplied means of intercourse between the states there is scarcely any control which cannot in a limited or remote degree be said to affect interstate commerce. But it is only direct interferences with the freedom of such commerce that bring the case within the exclusive domain of Federal legislation."

—and that it is only direct interference with the freedom of interstate commerce that brings a case within the exclusive domain: of federal legislation

How far Congress could deal with such cases we need not consider, but certainly there is nothing in the present state of the law, at least, that excludes the states from a familiar exercise of their power.

"If the legislature saw fit to give to those most directly interested, and whose consent could be most readily obtained, the right to protest, such action did not deprive other persons of rights guaranteed by the Constitution."

—involving a somewhat different but comparable situation: "It is well settled, however, that not every discrimination of this character violates constitutional rights. It is not the purpose of the 14th Amendment, as has been frequently held, to prevent the states from classifying the subjects of legislation, and making different regulations as to the property of different individuals …

In order, however, to at once dispose of the first contention we observe that the appellees cannot be heard to assail the judgment below, since they did not appeal.

To the contrary, the elementary principle is that the right to pass upon the greater question, the constitutional power of Congress, draws to it the authority to also decide all the essential incidents, even though otherwise there might not be a right to consider them.

When the laws operate upon all alike, and do not subject an individual to an arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, due process of law and the equal protection of the laws are secured.