Others have pointed to a Supreme Court case from 1905, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, as proof that the president has the authority to issue a vaccine requirement.

It is true that the Supreme Court in Jacobson ruled that vaccine mandates can be imposed by a local government, so long as that government is not acting in violation of state law. And it’s also true the Massachusetts law cited in the case was even more intrusive than the policies now being pushed by the Biden administration. But this argument also fails spectacularly for one very important reason.

In Jacobson, the Supreme Court determined that a local vaccine mandate is permissible under the Constitution because states have maintained their police powers and authority to regulate public health under the 10th Amendment, which guarantees, “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.”

But the decision in Jacobson does not include language indicating that the national government has the same authority. The case has nothing to do with federal vaccine mandates like the one imposed by Biden.