[2] Under the leadership of founder John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil began acquiring other refineries in Cleveland, which was a center of the U.S. refining industry.

[3] Under Rockefeller's direction, Standard Oil then began acquiring refining companies in other cities, and by 1879 it controlled more than 90 percent of the market.

As in the case against American Tobacco, which was decided the same day, the Court concluded that these facts were within the power of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause.

The Court recognized that "taken literally," the term "restraint of trade" could refer to any number of normal or usual contracts that do not harm the public.

Taking this language, in connection with other parts of the opinion, the subsidiary companies are thus, in effect, informed—unwisely, I think—that although the New Jersey corporation, being and illegal combination, must go out of existence, they may join in an agreement to restrain commerce among the states if such restraint be not 'undue.'

In order that my objections to certain parts of the court's opinion may distinctly appear, I must state the circumstances under which Congress passed the anti-trust act, and trace the course of judicial decisions as to its meaning and scope.

Such a danger was thought to be then imminent, and all felt that it must be met firmly and by such statutory regulations as would adequately protect the people against oppression and wrong.

Its authority to regulate such commerce was and is paramount, due force being given to other provisions of the fundamental law, devised by the fathers for the safety of the government and for the protection and security of the essential rights inhering in life, liberty, and property.

Guided by these considerations, and to the end that the people, so far as interstate commerce was concerned, might not be dominated by vast combinations and monopolies, having power to advance their own selfish ends, regardless of the general interests and welfare, Congress passed the anti-trust act of 1890... [... Harlan J quoted from United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 166 U.S. 290 (1897) and continued...]

I have made these extended extracts from the opinion of the court in the Trans-Missouri Freight Case in order to show beyond question that the point was there urged by counsel that the anti-trust act condemned only contracts, combinations, trusts, and conspiracies that were in unreasonable restraint of interstate commerce and that the court in clear and decisive language met that point.

Still more; in response to the suggestion by able counsel that Congress intended only to strike down such contracts, combinations, and monopolies as unreasonably restrained interstate commerce, this court, in words too clear to be misunderstood, said that to so hold was 'to read into the act by way of judicial legislation, an exception not placed there by the lawmaking branch of the government.'