The statute of the State of Mississippi of March 2, 1888,
requiring all railroads carrying passengers in that state (other
than street railroads) to provide equal but separate accommodations
for the white and colored races, having been construed by the
supreme court of the state to apply solely to commerce within the
state, does no violation to the commerce clause of the Constitution
of the United States.
The construction of a state statute by the highest court of the
state is accepted as conclusive in this Court.
The case is stated in the opinion.
The Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Company was
indicted for neglecting to provide separate accommodations on its
trains for white and colored persons, as required by Act of March
2, 1888. From a judgment of conviction, defendant appealed to the
supreme court, where the judgment was affirmed. 6 So. 203.
Defendant brings error.
Page 133 U. S. 588
MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is as to the validity of an act passed by
the Legislature of the State of Mississippi on the second of March,
1888. That act is as follows:
"SEC 1.
Be it enacted that all railroads carrying
passengers in this state other than street railroads shall provide
equal but separate accommodation for the white and colored races by
providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train or by
dividing the passenger cars by a partition so as to secure separate
accommodations."
"SEC. 2. That the conductors of such passenger trains shall have
power, and are hereby required, to assign each passenger to the car
or the compartment of a car, when it is divided by a partition,
used for the race to which said passenger belongs, and that, should
any passenger refuse to occupy the car to which he or she is
assigned by such conductor, said conductor shall have power to
refuse to carry such passenger on his train, and neither he nor the
railroad company shall be liable for any damages in any court in
this state."
"SEC. 3. That all railroad companies that shall refuse or
neglect, within sixty days after the approval of this act, to
comply with the requirements of section one of this act shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction in a
court of competent jurisdiction, be fined not more than five
hundred dollars, and any conductor that shall neglect to, or refuse
to, carry out the provisions of this act, shall, upon conviction,
be fined not less than twenty-five, nor more than fifty, dollars
for each offense."
"SEC. 4. That all acts and parts of acts in conflict with this
act be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and this act to take
effect and be in force from and after its passage."
Acts 1888, p. 48.
The plaintiff in error was indicted for a violation of that
statute. A conviction in the trial court was sustained in the
supreme court, and from its judgment this case is here on
Page 133 U. S. 589
error. The question is whether the act is a regulation of
interstate commerce, and therefore beyond the power of the state,
and the cases of
Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S.
485, and
Wabash, St. Louis &c. Railway v.
Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, are
specially relied on by plaintiff in error.
It will be observed that this indictment was against the company
for the violation of section one in not providing separate
accommodations for the two races, and not against a conductor for a
violation of section two in failing to assign each passenger to his
separate compartment. It will also be observed that this is not a
civil action brought by an individual to recover damages for being
compelled to occupy one particular compartment, or prevented from
riding on the train, and hence there is no question of personal
insult, or alleged violation of personal rights. The question is
limited to the power of the state to compel railroad companies to
provide, within the state, separate accommodations for the two
races. Whether such accommodation is to be a matter of choice or
compulsion does not enter into this case. The case of
Hall v.
DeCuir, supra, was a civil action to recover damages from the
owner of a steamboat for refusing to the plaintiff, a person of
color, accommodations in the cabin specially set apart for white
persons, and the validity of a statute of the State of Louisiana
prohibiting discrimination on account of color and giving a right
of action to the party injured for the violation thereof was a
question for consideration. The steamboat was engaged in interstate
commerce, but the plaintiff only sought transportation from one
point to another in the state. This Court held that statute, so far
as applicable to the facts in that case, to be invalid. That
decision is invoked here, but there is this marked difference: the
Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana held that the act applied
to interstate carriers, and required them, when they came within
the limits of the state, to receive colored passengers into the
cabin set apart for white persons. This Court, accepting that
construction as conclusive, held that the act was a regulation of
interstate commerce, and therefore beyond the power of the state.
The Chief Justice, speaking for the Court, said:
"For the purposes of this case,
Page 133 U. S. 590
we must treat the Act of Louisiana of February 23, 1869, as
requiring those engaged in interstate commerce to give all persons
traveling in that state, upon the public conveyances employed in
such business, equal rights and privileges in all parts of the
conveyance, without distinction or discrimination or account of
race or color. Such was the construction given to that act in the
courts below, and it is conclusive upon us as the construction of a
state law by the state courts. It is with this provision of the
statute alone that we have to deal. We having nothing whatever to
do with it as a regulation of internal commerce, or as affecting
anything else than commerce among the states."
And again:
"But we think that it may safely be said that state legislation
which seeks to impose a direct burden upon interstate commerce, or
to interfere directly with its freedom, does encroach upon the
exclusive power of Congress. The statute now under consideration,
in our opinion occupies that position. It does not act upon the
business through the local instruments to be employed after coming
within the state, but directly upon the business as it comes into
the state from without, or goes out from within. While it purports
only to control the carrier when engaged within the state, it must
necessarily influence his conduct to some extent in the management
of his business throughout his entire voyage. His disposition of
passengers taken up and put down within the state, or taken up
within to be carried without, cannot but affect in a greater or
less degree those taken up without and brought within, and
sometimes those taken up and put down without. A passenger in the
cabin set apart for the use of whites without the state must, when
the boat comes within, share the accommodations of that cabin with
such colored persons as may come on board afterwards if the law is
enforced."
So the decision, was by it terms carefully limited to those
cases in which the law practically interfered with interstate
commerce. Obviously whether interstate passengers of one race
should, in any portion of their journey, be compelled to share
their cabin accommodations with passengers of another race was a
question of interstate commerce, and to be determined
Page 133 U. S. 591
by Congress alone. In this case, the Supreme Court of
Mississippi held that the statute applied solely to commerce within
the state, and that construction, being the construction of the
statute of the state by its highest court, must be accepted as
conclusive here. If it be a matter respecting wholly commerce
within a state, and not interfering with commerce between the
states, then obviously there is no violation of the commerce clause
of the federal Constitution. Counsel for plaintiff in error
strenuously insists that it does affect and regulate interstate
commerce, but this contention cannot be sustained.
So far as the first section is concerned, and it is with that
alone we have to do, its provisions are fully complied with when to
trains within the state is attached a separate car for colored
passengers. This may cause an extra expense to the railroad
company, but not more so than state statutes requiring certain
accommodations at depots, compelling trains to stop at crossings of
other railroads, and a multitude of other matters confessedly
within the power of the state.
No question arises under this section as to the power of the
state to separate in different compartments interstate passengers
or to affect in any manner the privileges and rights of such
passengers. All that we can consider is whether the state has the
power to require that railroad trains within her limits shall have
separate accommodations for the two races. That affecting only
commerce within the state is no invasion of the powers give to
Congress by the commerce clause.
In the case of
Wabash Railway Co. v. Illinois, supra,
MR. JUSTICE MILLER, speaking for the Court, said:
"If the Illinois statute could be construed to apply exclusively
to contracts for a carriage which begins and ends within the state,
disconnected from a continuous transportation through or into other
states, there does not seem to be any difficulty in holding it to
be valid. For instance, a contract might be made to carry goods for
a certain price from Cairo to Chicago, or from Chicago to Alton.
The charges for these might be within the competency of the
Illinois Legislature to regulate. The
Page 133 U. S. 592
reason for that is that both the charge and the actual
transportation in such cases are exclusively confined to the limits
of the territory of the state, and is not commerce among the
states, or interstate commerce, but is exclusively commerce within
the state. So far, therefore, as this class of transportation as an
element of commerce is affected by the statute under consideration,
it is not subject to the constitutional provision concerning
commerce among the states. It has often been held in this Court,
and there can be no doubt about it, that there is a commerce wholly
within the state which is not subject to the constitutional
provision, and the distinction between commerce among the states
and the other class of commerce, between the citizens of a single
state and conducted within its limits exclusively, is one which has
been fully recognized in this Court, although it may not be always
easy, where the lines of these classes approach each other, to
distinguish between the one and the other.
The Daniel
Ball, 10 Wall. 557;
Hall v. De Cuir,
95 U. S.
485;
Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S.
460."
The statute in this case, as settled by the Supreme Court of the
State of Mississippi, affects only such commerce within the state,
and comes therefore within the principles thus laid down. It comes
also within the opinion of this Court in the case of
Stone v.
Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 116 U.
S. 307.
We see no error in the ruling of the Supreme Court of the State
of Mississippi, and its judgment is therefore
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.
The defendant, the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad
Company, owns and operates a continuous line of railroad from
Memphis to New Orleans. If one of its passenger trains -- starting,
for instance, from Memphis to go to New Orleans -- enters the
territory of Mississippi without having cars attached to it for the
separate accommodation of the white and black races, the company
and the conductor of such train is
Page 133 U. S. 593
liable to be fined as prescribed in the statute, the validity of
which is here in question. In other words, it is made an offense
against the State of Mississippi if a railroad company engaged in
interstate commerce shall presume to send one of its trains into or
through that state without such arrangement of its cars as will
secure separate accommodations for both races.
In
Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485, this
Court declared unconstitutional and void, as a regulation of
interstate commerce, an act of the Louisiana Legislature which
required those engaged in interstate commerce to give all persons
traveling in that state upon the public conveyances employed in
such business equal rights and privileges in all parts of the
conveyance, without distinction or discrimination on account of
race or color. The Court, speaking by Chief Justice Waite,
said:
"We think it may safely be said that state legislation which
seeks to impose a direct burden upon interstate commerce, or to
interfere directly with its freedom, does encroach upon the
exclusive power of Congress. The statute now under consideration,
in our opinion occupies that position. It does not act upon the
business through the local instruments to be employed after coming
within the state, but directly upon the business as it comes into
the state from without or goes out from within. While it purports
only to control the carrier when engaged within the state, it must
necessarily influence his conduct to some extent in the management
of his business throughout his entire voyage. This disposition of
passengers taken up and put down within the state or taken up
within to be carried without cannot but affect in a greater or less
degree those taken up without and brought within, and sometimes
those taken up and put down without. A passenger in the cabin set
apart for the use of whites without the state must, when the boat
comes within, share the accommodations of that cabin with such
colored persons as may come on board afterwards if the law is
enforced. It was to meet just such a case that the commercial
clause in the Constitution was adopted. The River Mississippi
passes through or along the borders of ten different states, and
its tributaries reach many
Page 133 U. S. 594
more. The commerce upon these waters is immense, and its
regulation clearly a matter of national concern. If each state was
at liberty to regulate the conduct of carriers while within its
jurisdiction, the confusion likely to follow could not but be
productive of great inconvenience and unnecessary hardship. Each
state could provide for its own passengers, and regulate the
transportation of its own freight, regardless of the interests of
others. Nay, more -- it could prescribe rules by which the carrier
must be governed within the state in respect to passengers and
property brought from without. On one side of the river or its
tributaries he might be required to observe one set of rules, and
on the other another. Commerce cannot flourish in the midst of such
embarrassments. No carrier of passengers can conduct his business
with satisfaction to himself or comfort to those employing him if
on one side of a state line his passengers, both white and colored,
must be permitted to occupy the same cabin, and on the other be
kept separate. Uniformity in the regulations by which he is to be
governed from one end to the other of his route is a necessity in
his business, and to secure it, Congress, which is untrammeled by
state lines, has been invested with the exclusive legislative power
of determining what such regulations shall be."
It seems to me that those observations are entirely pertinent to
the case before us. In its application to passengers on vessels
engaged in interstate commerce, the Louisiana enactment forbade the
separation of the white and black races while such vessels were
within the limits of that state. The Mississippi statute, in its
application to passengers on railroad trains employed in interstate
commerce, requires such separation of races while those trains are
within that state. I am unable to perceive how the former is a
regulation of interstate commerce and the other is not. It is
difficult to understand how a state enactment requiring the
separation of the white and black races on interstate carriers of
passengers is a regulation of commerce among the states, while a
similar enactment forbidding such separation is not a regulation of
that character.
Without considering other grounds upon which, in my judgment,
the statute in question might properly be held to be
Page 133 U. S. 595
repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, I dissent
from the opinion and judgment in this case upon the ground that the
statute of Mississippi is, without the decision in
Hall v. De
Cuir, a regulation of commerce among the states, and is
therefore void.
I am authorized by MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY to say that in his
opinion the statute of Mississippi is void as a regulation of
interstate commerce.