which we may take
judicial notice. Indeed, that such bills of lading and the faith and
credit given to their genuineness and the value they represent are the
producing and sustaining causes of the enormous number of transactions
in domestic and foreign exchange, is also so certain and well known that
we may notice it without proof."[417]

Congressional Regulation of Commerce as Traffic

THE SHERMAN ACT; THE "SUGAR TRUST CASE"

Congress's chief effort to regulate commerce in the primary sense of
"traffic" is embodied in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the opening
section of which declares "every contract, combination in the form of
trust or otherwise," or "conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce
among the several States, or with foreign nations" to be "illegal,"
while the second section makes it a misdemeanor for anybody to
"monopolize or attempt to monopolize any part of such commerce."[418]
The act was passed to curb the growing tendency to form industrial
combinations and the first case to reach the Court under it was the
famous "Sugar Trust Case," United States _v._ E.C. Knight Co.[419] Here
the Government asked for the cancellation of certain agreements,
whereby, through purchases of stock in other companies, the American
Sugar Refining Company, had "acquired," it was conceded, "nearly
complete control of the manufacture of refined sugars in the United
States." The question of the validity of the act was not expressly
discussed by the Court, but was subordinated to that of its proper
construction. So proceeding, the Court, in pursuance of doctrines of
Constitutional Law which were then dominant with it, turned the act from
its intended purpose and destroyed its effectiveness for several years,
as that of the Interstate Commerce Act was being contemporaneously
impaired. The following passage early in Chief Justice Fuller's opinion
for the Court, sets forth the conception of the Federal System that
controlled the decision: "It is vital that the independence of the
commercial power and of the police power, and the delimitation between
them, however sometimes perplexing, should always be recognized and
observed, for while the one furnishes the strongest bond of union, the
other is essential to the preservation of the autonomy of the States as
required by our dual form of government; and acknowledged evils, however
grave and urgent they may appear to be, had better be borne, than risk
be run, in the effor