TRANSPORTATION - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

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TRANSPORTATIONAuthored

The Law Mind • 1207 words

Definition

(Commercial/Regulatory) The removal of goods or persons from one place to another by a carrier. Under federal regulatory law, transportation is a term of art extending beyond the physical act of movement. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, as amended in 1906, defined transportation to include all instrumentalities and facilities of shipment, as well as all services in connection with the receipt, delivery, elevation, and handling of property transported. This expansive statutory definition shaped decades of federal commerce regulation and remains relevant to interpreting successor statutes governing railroads, motor carriers, and pipelines.

(Criminal/Penal — historical) A punishment inflicted by removing a convicted criminal from their home country and exiling them to a designated overseas territory — typically a penal colony — for a prescribed term or for life. Transportation was a creature of statute, not common law, and was the primary alternative to capital punishment in English practice for roughly two centuries. In England it was formally abolished during the Victorian era and replaced by the punishment of penal servitude.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of conveying people or goods from one place to another; a means of conveyance; a ticket or fare; historical deportation to a penal colony.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of transporting, or the state of being transported; carriage from one place to another; removal; conveyance.

The common and legal senses overlap substantially for the commercial meaning. The gap worth flagging is the criminal-law sense: "transportation" as a penal punishment is a fully distinct legal concept that common usage has largely forgotten. A researcher encountering the term in 18th- or 19th-century sources must determine at the outset whether the document concerns commerce or criminal sentencing — context that modern readers may miss entirely.

Common Confusion

Transportation (criminal) vs. Penal Servitude vs. Banishment: These terms are sometimes used interchangeably in older sources but are not identical. Transportation involved physical removal to an overseas penal colony with compelled labor; penal servitude was the English statutory replacement, involving imprisonment and hard labor within the realm. Banishment is the broader concept of forced exile and may or may not involve compelled labor or a designated destination. In American colonial and early republic sources, "transportation" occasionally appears as a threatened or imposed punishment, but the American legal tradition did not adopt the English penal transportation system in any systematic form.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Transportation for Life: The most severe form of penal transportation, reserved for serious felonies; the offender was permanently exiled with no right of return.

Transportation for a Term: A fixed-period sentence (commonly seven or fourteen years) after which the offender might return, though in practice many could not afford to do so.

Interstate Transportation (U.S. regulatory): The movement of persons or property across state lines, forming the jurisdictional basis for federal commerce regulation under the Commerce Clause and successive federal transportation statutes.

Intrastate Transportation: Movement entirely within a single state, historically within state regulatory jurisdiction but subject to federal preemption in specific sectors such as rail and air.

Why It Matters in Research

The dual meaning of this term is the primary research hazard. Any search across the Law Mind corpus using "transportation" without filtering by era, jurisdiction, or subject area will return results from two almost entirely separate bodies of law — commercial carrier regulation and English penal history — that share only a word.

For commercial transportation research: The statutory definition from the Interstate Commerce Act is the controlling starting point for U.S. federal regulatory materials from 1887 forward. The term expanded with each major amendment and successor statute (Hepburn Act, Mann-Elkins Act, Transportation Act of 1920, Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995). Researchers must track which statutory definition was in force at the time of the document under review, as the scope of regulated "transportation" changed with each enactment.

For penal transportation research: Primary sources are English. The corpus will contain discussion of this punishment in treatises on English criminal law, colonial governance (particularly Australia and Van Diemen's Land), and comparative penology. Rapalje & Lawrence locates the consolidating statute at 5 Geo. IV c. 84, which is the key reference point for sources discussing the practice in its mature form. After abolition, English sources shift to "penal servitude" — a researcher tracing the evolution of non-capital punishment must follow the term across this substitution.

Jurisdictional variation in the commercial sense is substantial. Federal preemption of state transportation regulation has expanded dramatically over the 20th century. Regulatory materials from before 1887 operate under an entirely different framework. Air transportation introduced separate statutory regimes not addressed in the historical dictionaries represented here.

The Bouvier entry's reference to the 1887 and 1906 Interstate Commerce Acts is the most practically useful of the historical sources for commercial research, as it signals that the legal definition of the term was already understood to exceed its ordinary meaning by the early 20th century.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are broadly consistent in recognizing both meanings but weighted toward different eras and traditions. Burrill provides the most detailed treatment of the English criminal-law sense, tracing the punishment to statute 18 Car. II c. 3 and citing Blackstone and Wooddeson. This is the appropriate starting point for pre-Victorian English criminal law research. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the important note that transportation was abolished during the Victorian reign and replaced by penal servitude — a transition point that Burrill, writing earlier, does not reflect.

Black's (both editions) treats the commercial definition first and the criminal definition second, reflecting the American editorial perspective. The 2nd edition adds case citations for the commercial sense. Bouvier is unique in explicitly engaging the statutory definitional expansion under the Interstate Commerce Act, making it the most useful of the five for 20th-century U.S. regulatory research.

None of the historical dictionaries address air transportation, pipeline regulation, or the significant federal preemption doctrine that developed across the 20th century. These gaps are structural — they reflect the publication dates — and researchers working in modern transportation law should treat the historical entries as background only.

Jurisdictional Note

The criminal-law sense of transportation is essentially an English and Commonwealth concept with no meaningful American parallel as an institutionalized punishment. For commercial transportation, U.S. federal law governs interstate movement across all major modes (rail, motor carrier, air, pipeline), while intrastate transportation remains subject to state law except where preempted. Researchers working in non-U.S. jurisdictions should note that successor Commonwealth nations developed distinct bodies of transportation law following abolition of the colonial penal system.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Motor Vehicle and Transportation Torts — Respondeat Superior in Transportation (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) [torts_53]
Motor Vehicle and Transportation Torts — No-Fault Insurance Systems (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) [torts_48]
The Railway Labor Act and Transportation Industry Labor Law (The Law Mind Employment & Labor Law Encyclopedia) [employment_96]

TRANSPORTATIONmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

The removal of goods or persons from one place to another, by a carrier. In criminal law. A species of punish- ment consisting in removing the criminal from his own country to another, (usually penal colony,) there to remain in exile for prescribed period.

TRANSPORTATIONmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

The removal of goods or persons from one; place to another, by a carrier. See Railroad Co. v. Pratt, 22 Wall. 133, 22 L. Ed. 827; Interstate Commerce Com’n v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447.,.14 Sup. Ct. 1125, 38 L. Ed. 1047; Gloucestexg Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, ae Sup. Ct. 826, 29 L. Ed. 158. In criminal law. A species of punisht ment consisting in removing: the criminal from his own country to another, (usually::& penal colony,) there to remain in exile for a prescribed period. Fong Yue Ting v. U. S., 149'U. S. 698, 13 Sup. Ct. 1016, 87 L. Ed. om

TRANSPORTATIONmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

- Under Stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 84, which revised and consolidated the previous acts on the subject, the crown was enabled to appoint places beyond the seas to which offenders might be conveyed and kept to hard labor. During the present English reign the punishment of transportation was abolished, and that of penal servitude (q. v.) substituted, davit is sometimes called the "traverse," 4 Steph. Com. 449. TRANSPORTATION, (defined). 2 Barn. & Ald. 258. (what is not). 2 Wheat. (U. S.) 120. TRANSPORTATION OF PROPERTY, (what is). 6 Cal. 462, 470. TRANSUMPTS.-In the Scotch law, an action of transumpt is an action competent to any one having a partial interest in a writing, or immediate use for it, to support his title or defenses in other actions. It is directed against the custodier of the writing, calling upon him to exhibit it, in order that a transumpt, i. e. a copy, may be judicially made and delivered to the pursuer.-Bell Dict. TRAVELED PART OF THE ROAD, (in a statute, defined). 28 Mich. 32, 42; 4 Pick. (Mass.) 125. TRAVELED PLACE, (in a statute). 7 Gray (Mass.) 98. TRAVELER, (defined). 35 Conn. 185; 3 Barn. & Ald. 283, 285; 11 Pittsb. L. J. 407, and cases cited. (who is not). 43 Conn. 154; 1 Hilt. (Ν. Υ.) 193. (in a statute). 62 Me. 468; 63 Id. 477; 65 Id. 34; 20 Am. Rep. 673; 8 Allen (Mass.) 237; 107 Mass. 347; 110 Id. 21, 23; TRAVELING, (defined). 47 Ala. 42; 53 Id. Penn. (N. J.) 433; L. R. P. 324. 519. Ν. Η. 17. (what is not). Com. 345. (in a statute). 49 Ala. 350, 355; 57 TRAVELING POST, (defined). 8 East 584, 585 п. (in a statute). 3 T. R. 69. TRAVERSE.-OLD FRENCH: traverser, to deny; (Britt. 147a;) from Latin, transversus. 1. Pleadings, affidavits, &c. - In the ordinary practice, to traverse is to deny an allegation of fact. The term is because the affidavit is in the same form as if it were made in answer to an interrogatory. Noel v. Noel, De G., J. & S. 461; Rochdale Co. v. King, 15 Beav. 11. 23. Ofor inquisition.-Traverse of office of inquisition is a mode by which a subject or citizen can, in certain cases, dispute an office or inquisition finding the crown or government entitled to property claimed by him. It was formerly a convenient remedy, on account of the difficulty of obtaining redress against the crown by petition of right, but since the amendment and extension of the latter mode of proceeding, traverses of office have fallen into disuse. One of the most usual instances of their use was in resisting extents (see EXTENT), in which case the defendant or traverser (i. e. the person claiming the property) entered an appearance and claim, followed by a plea or traverse disputing the debt alleged by the crown, to which the crown replied or demurred, and so on, until issue joined, when the cause was tried by a jury at Westminster. Judgment for the crown on a traverse is, "that the subject take nothing by his traverse;" if for the subject, it is judgment of amoveas manus- "that the queen's hands be amoved," &c. Chit. Prerog. 356 et seq.; Tidd Pr. 1076. 24. Lunacy. This procedure by traverse was extended to inquisitions in lunacy by Stat. 2 and 3 Edw. VI. c. 8. Under the present English practice, where a person has been found lunatic by inquisition, (not by trial under Lunacy Reg. Act, 1862, § 4 (see INQUIRY, 25), for

TRANSPORTATIONn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of transporting, or the state of being transported; carriage from one place to another; removal; conveyance. To provide a vessel for their transportation. Sir H. Wotton. Transport; ecstasy. [R.] South.

transportationnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

The act of transporting, or the state of being transported; conveyance, often of people, goods etc. | Deportation to a penal colony. | A means of conveyance. | A ticket or fare.

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