in Munn v. Illinois (1877), the Supreme Court went beyond arguments resting on public safety. It qualified the due process clause regarding property in the Fourteenth Amendment by marking the railroads as a specific class of property “clothed with a public interest” and holding monopoly power, in the sense that the public had no realistic choice but to make use of the services railroads provided. The court countenanced state regulation of railroad rates and grain warehouse rates in the public interest.
