Champion v. Ames - Suppression Of Lotteries Is A Power Of The States

Chief Justice Fuller, writing the dissent, noted that the power to impose restraints on persons and property to conserve and promote public health, good order, and prosperity was a power that has always belonged to the states. The suppression of lotteries as a harmful business fell within this police power.

To hold that Congress has general police power would be to hold that it may accomplish objects not entrusted to the general government, and to defeat the operation of the 10th Amendment, declaring that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.