1. The case of the
City of New York v.
Miln, 11 Pet. 103, decided no more than that the
requirement from the master of a vessel of a catalogue of his
passengers landed in the city, rendered to the mayor on oath, with
a correct description of their names, ages, occupations, places of
birth, and of last legal settlement, was a police regulation within
the power of the state to enact, and not inconsistent with the
Constitution of the United States.
2. The result of the
Passenger
Cases, 7 How. 283, was to hold that a tax demanded
of the master or owner of the vessel for every such passenger was a
regulation of commerce by the state in conflict with the
Constitution and laws of the United States, and therefore void.
3. These cases criticized, and the weight due to them as
authority considered.
4. In whatever language a statute may be framed, its purpose and
its constitutional validity must be determined by its natural and
reasonable effect.
5. Hence, a statute which imposes a burdensome and almost
impossible condition on the shipmaster as a prerequisite to his
landing his passengers, with
Page 92 U. S. 260
an alternative payment of a small sum of money for each one of
them, is a tax on the shipowner for the right to land such
passengers, and, in effect, on the passenger himself, since the
shipmaster makes him pay it in advance as part of his fare.
6. Such a statute of a state is a regulation of commerce, and,
when applied to passengers from foreign countries, is a regulation
of commerce with foreign nations.
7. It is no answer to the charge that such regulation of
commerce by a state is forbidden by the Constitution to say that it
falls within the police power of the states, for to whatever class
of legislative powers it may belong,
it is prohibited to the states if granted exclusively to
Congress by that instrument.
8. Though it be conceded that there is a class of legislation
which may affect commerce, both with foreign nations and between
the states, in regard to which the laws of the states may be valid
in the absence of action under the authority of Congress on the
same subjects, this can have no reference to matters which are in
their nature national or which admit of a uniform system or plan of
regulation.
9. The statutes of New York and Louisiana here under
consideration are intended to regulate commercial matters which are
not only of national but of international concern, and which are
also best regulated by one uniform rule applicable alike to all the
seaports of the United States. These statutes are therefore void
because legislation on the subjects which they cover is confided
exclusively to Congress by the clause of the Constitution which
gives to that body the "right to regulate commerce with foreign
nations."
10. The constitutional objection to this tax on the passenger is
not removed because the penalty for failure to pay does not accrue
until twenty-four hours after he is landed. The penalty is incurred
by the act of landing him without payment, and is, in fact, for the
act of bringing him into the state.
11. This Court does not in this case undertake to decide whether
or not a state may, in the absence of all legislation by Congress
on the same subject, pass a statute strictly limited to defending
itself against paupers, convicted criminals, and others of that
class, but is of opinion that to Congress rightfully and
appropriately belongs the power of legislating on the whole
subject.
These cases come here by appeal -- the former from the Circuit
Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York,
the latter from the Circuit Court of the United States for the
District of Louisiana.
In the case from New York, which is a suit in equity against the
Mayor of the City of New York and the Commissioners of Emigration,
the bill alleges that the complainants are subjects of Great
Britain and owners of the steamship
Ethiopia; that their
vessel arrived at the port of New York from Glasgow, Scotland, on
the 24th of June, 1875, having on board a
Page 92 U. S. 261
number of emigrant passengers, and, among others, three persons
whose names are specified who came from a foreign country intending
to pass through the State of New York, and settle and reside in
other states of the Union and in Canada; that, by the statutes of
the State of New York, the master of every vessel arriving at the
port of New York from a foreign port is required, within
twenty-four hours after his arrival, to report in writing to the
Mayor of New York the name, birthplace, last residence, and
occupation of every passenger who is not a citizen of the United
States; that the statute then directs the mayor, by endorsement on
this report, to require the owner or consignee of the vessel to
give a bond for every passenger so reported, in a penalty of $300,
with two sureties, each to be a resident and freeholder of the
state, conditioned to indemnify the Commissioners of Emigration,
and every county, city, and town in the state, against any expense
for the relief or support of the person named in the bond for four
years thereafter; but that the owner or consignee may commute such
bond, and be relieved from giving it, by paying for each passenger,
within twenty-four hours after his or her landing, the sum of one
dollar and fifty cents, fifty cents whereof is to be paid to other
counties in the state, and the residue to the Commissioners of
Emigration for their general purposes, and particularly to be used
in erecting wharves and buildings, and in paying salaries and clerk
hire.
That if he does not, within twenty-four hours after landing such
passengers, either give the bond or pay the commutation tax for
each passenger, he is liable to a penalty of $500 for every such
passenger, which is made a lien on, and may be enforced against,
the vessel at the suit of the Commissioners of Emigration.
The master of the
Ethiopia made the report required by
the act, whereupon the complainants, in order to test the validity
of the provisions of the acts requiring the bond or the commutation
thereof, filed their bill, which the court, on the demurrer of the
defendants, dismissed. The complainants thereupon appealed to this
Court.
Page 92 U. S. 265
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the case of the
City of New York v.
Miln, reported in 11 Pet. 103, the question of the
constitutionality of a statute of the state concerning passengers
in vessels coming to the port of New York was considered by this
Court. It was an act passed Feb. 11, 1824, consisting of several
sections. The first section, the only one passed upon by the Court,
required the master of every ship or vessel arriving in the port of
New York from any country out of the United States, or from any
other state of the United States, to make report in writing, and on
oath, within twenty-four hours after his arrival, to the mayor of
the city, of the name, place of birth, last legal settlement, age,
and occupation of every person brought as a passenger from any
country out of the United States, or from any of the United States
into the port of New York, or into any of the United States, and of
all persons landed from the ship, or put on board, or suffered to
go on board, any other vessel during the voyage with intent of
proceeding to the City of New York. A penalty was prescribed of
seventy-five dollars for each passenger not so reported and for
every person whose name, place of
Page 92 U. S. 266
birth, last legal settlement, age, and occupation should be
falsely reported.
The other sections required him to give bond on the demand of
the mayor to save harmless the city from all expense of support and
maintenance of such passenger, or to return any passenger deemed
liable to become a charge to his last place of settlement, and
required each passenger not a citizen of the United States to make
report of himself to the mayor stating his age, occupation, the
name of the vessel in which he arrived, the place where he landed,
and name of the commander of the vessel. We gather from the report
of the case that the defendant, Miln, was sued for the penalties
claimed for refusing to make the report required in the first
section. A division of opinion was certified by the judges of the
circuit court on the question, whether the act assumes to regulate
commerce between the port of New York and foreign ports, and is
unconstitutional and void.
This Court, expressly limiting its decision to the first section
of the act, held that it fell within the police powers of the
states, and was not in conflict with the federal Constitution.
From this decision Mr. Justice Story dissented, and in his
opinion stated that Chief Justice Marshall, who had died between
the first and the second argument of the case, fully concurred with
him in the view that the statute of New York was void because it
was a regulation of commerce forbidden to the states.
In the
Passenger
Cases, reported in 7 How. 283, the branch of the
statute not passed upon in the preceding case came under
consideration in this Court. It was not the same statute, but was a
law relating to the marine hospital on Staten Island. It authorized
the health commissioner to demand, and, if not paid, to sue for and
recover, from the master of every vessel arriving in the port of
New York from a foreign port, one dollar and fifty cents for each
cabin passenger, and one dollar for each steerage passenger, mate,
sailor, or mariner, and from the master of each coasting vessel
twenty-five cents for each person on board. These moneys were to be
appropriated to the use of the hospital.
The defendant, Smith, who was sued for the sum of $295 for
Page 92 U. S. 267
refusing to pay for 295 steerage passengers on board the British
ship "Henry Bliss," of which he was master, demurred to the
declaration on the ground that the act was contrary to the
Constitution of the United States, and void. From a judgment
against him, affirmed in the Court of Errors of the State of New
York, he sued out a writ of error, on which the question was
brought to this Court.
It was here held, at the January Term, 1849, that the statute
was "repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States,
and therefore void."
48 U. S. 7 How.
572.
Immediately after this decision, the State of New York modified
her statute on that subject, with a view, no doubt, to avoid the
constitutional objection; and amendments and alterations have
continued to be made up to the present time.
As the law not stands, the master or owner of every vessel
landing passengers from a foreign port is bound to make a report
similar to the one recited in the statute held to be valid in the
case of
New York v. Miln, and on this report the mayor is
to endorse a demand upon the master or owner that he give a bond
for every passenger landed in the city in the penal sum of $300,
conditioned to indemnify the commissioners of emigration and every
county, city, and town in the state against any expense for the
relief or support of the person named in the bond for four years
thereafter, but the owner or consignee may commute for such bond
and be released from giving it by paying, within twenty-four hours
after the landing of the passengers, the sum of one dollar and
fifty cents for each one of them. If neither the bond be given nor
the sum paid within the twenty-four hours, a penalty of $500 for
each pauper is incurred which is made a lien on the vessel,
collectible by attachment at the suit of the Commissioner of
Emigration.
Conceding the authority of the
Passenger Cases, which
will be more fully considered hereafter, it is argued that the
change in the statute now relied upon requiring primarily a bond
for each passenger landed, as an indemnity against his becoming a
future charge to the state or county, leaving it optional with the
shipowner to avoid this by paying a fixed sum for each passenger,
takes it out of the principle of the case of
Smith v.
Turner -- the
Passenger Case from New York. It is
said that
Page 92 U. S. 268
the statute in that case was a direct tax on the passenger,
since the act authorized the shipmaster to collect it of him, and
that on that ground alone was it held void, while in the present
case the requirement of the bond is but a suitable regulation under
the power of the state to protect its cities and towns from the
expense of supporting persons who are paupers or diseased, or
helpless women and children, coming from foreign countries.
In whatever language a statute may be framed, its purpose must
be determined by its natural and reasonable effect, and if it is
apparent that the object of this statute, as judged by that
criterion, is to compel the owners of vessels to pay a sum of money
for every passenger brought by them from a foreign shore, and
landed at the port of New York, it is as much a tax on passengers
if collected from them, or a tax on the vessel or owners for the
exercise of the right of landing their passengers in that city, as
was the statute held void in the
Passenger Cases.
To require a heavy and almost impossible condition to the
exercise of this right, with the alternative of payment of a small
sum of money, is in effect to demand payment of that sum. To
suppose that a vessel which once a month lands from three hundred
to one thousand passengers, or from three thousand to twelve
thousand per annum, will give that many bonds of $300 with good
sureties, with a covenant for four years, against accident,
disease, or poverty of the passenger named in such bond is absurd
when this can be avoided by the payment of one dollar and fifty
cents collected of the passenger before he embarks on the
vessel.
Such bonds would amount in many instances, for every voyage, to
more than the value of the vessel. The liability on the bond would
be, through a long lapse of time, contingent on circumstances which
the bondsman could neither foresee nor control. The cost of
preparing the bond and approving sureties, with the trouble
incident to it in each case, is greater than the sum required to be
paid as commutation. It is inevitable under such a law that the
money would be paid for each passenger or the statute resisted or
evaded. It is a law in its purpose and effect imposing a tax on the
owner of the
Page 92 U. S. 269
vessel for the privilege of landing in New York passengers
transported from foreign countries.
It is said that the purpose of the act is to protect the state
against the consequences of the flood of pauperism immigrating from
Europe and first landing in that city.
But it is a strange mode of doing this to tax every passenger
alike who comes from abroad.
The man who brings with him important additions to the wealth of
the country and the man who is perfectly free from disease and
brings to aid the industry of the country a stout heart and a
strong arm are as much the subject of the tax as the diseased
pauper who may become the object of the charity of the city the day
after he lands from the vessel.
No just rule can make the citizen of France landing from an
English vessel on our shore liable for the support of an English or
Irish pauper who lands at the same time from the same vessel.
So far as the authority of the cases of
New York v.
Miln and
Passenger Cases can be received as
conclusive, they decide that the requirement of a catalogue of
passengers with statements of their last residence and other
matters of that character is a proper exercise of state authority
and that the requirement of the bond, or the alternative payment of
money for each passenger, is void because forbidden by the
Constitution and laws of the United States. But the
Passenger
Cases (so called because a similar statute of the State of
Massachusetts was the subject of consideration at the same term
with that of New York) were decided by a bare majority of the
Court. Justices McLean Wayne, Catron, McKinley, and Grier held both
statutes void, while Chief Justice Taney and Justices Daniel,
Nelson, and Woodbury held them valid. Each member of the Court
delivered a separate opinion giving the reasons for his judgment,
except Judge Nelson, none of them professing to be the
authoritative opinion of the Court. Nor is there to be found in the
reasons given by the judges who constituted the majority such
harmony of views as would give that weight to the decision which it
lacks by reason of the divided judgments of the members of the
Court. Under these circumstances, with three cases before us
arising under statutes of three different states
Page 92 U. S. 270
on the same subject, which have been discussed as though open in
this Court to all considerations bearing upon the question, we
approach it with the hope of attaining a unanimity not found in the
opinions of our predecessors.
As already indicated, the provisions of the Constitution of the
United States on which the principal reliance is placed to make
void the statute of New York is that which gives to Congress the
power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations." As was said in
United States v.
Holliday, 3 Wall. 417, "commerce with foreign
nations means commerce between citizens of the United States and
citizens or subjects of foreign governments." It means trade, and
it means intercourse. It means commercial intercourse between
nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches. It includes
navigation as the principal means by which foreign intercourse is
effected. To regulate this trade and intercourse is to prescribe
the rules by which it shall be conducted. "The mind," says the
great Chief Justice,
"can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between
nations which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation, which
shall be silent on the admission of the vessels of one nation into
the ports of another,"
and, he might have added with equal force, which prescribed no
terms for the admission of their cargo or their passengers.
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 190.
Since the delivery of the opinion in that case, which has become
the accepted canon of construction of this clause of the
Constitution, as far as it extends, the transportation of
passengers from European ports to those of the United States has
attained a magnitude and importance far beyond its proportion at
that time to other branches of commerce. It has become a part of
our commerce with foreign nations of vast interest to this country
as well as to the immigrants who come among us to find a welcome
and a home within our borders. In addition to the wealth which some
of them bring, they bring still more largely the labor which we
need to till our soil, build our railroads, and develop the latent
resources of the country in its minerals, its manufactures, and its
agriculture. Is the regulation of this great system a regulation of
commerce? Can it be doubted that a law which prescribes the terms
on which vessels
Page 92 U. S. 271
shall engage in it is a law regulating this branch of
commerce?
The transportation of a passenger from Liverpool to the City of
New York is one voyage. It is not completed until the passenger is
disembarked at the pier in the latter city. A law or a rule
emanating from any lawful authority which prescribes terms or
conditions on which alone the vessel can discharge its passengers
is a regulation of commerce, and in case of vessels and passengers
coming from foreign ports, is a regulation of commerce with foreign
nations.
The accuracy of these definitions is scarcely denied by the
advocates of the state statutes. But assuming that in the formation
of our government, certain powers necessary to the administration
of their internal affairs are reserved to the states, and that
among these powers are those for the preservation of good order, of
the health and comfort of the citizens, and their protection
against pauperism and against contagious and infectious diseases
and other matters of legislation of like character, they insist
that the power here exercised falls within this class, and belongs
rightfully to the states.
This power, frequently referred to in the decisions of this
Court, has been, in general terms, somewhat loosely called the
police power. It is not necessary for the course of this discussion
to attempt to define it more accurately than it has been defined
already. It is not necessary, because whatever may be the nature
and extent of that power, where not otherwise restricted, no
definition of it, and no urgency for its use, can authorize a state
to exercise it in regard to a subject matter which has been
confided exclusively to the discretion of Congress by the
Constitution.
Nothing is gained in the argument by calling it the police
power. Very many statutes, when the authority on which their
enactments rest is examined, may be referred to different sources
or power, and supported equally well under any of them. A statute
may at the same time be an exercise of the taxing power and of the
power of eminent domain. A statute punishing counterfeiting may be
for the protection of the private citizen against fraud, and a
measure for the protection of the currency and for the safety of
the government which issues it.
Page 92 U. S. 272
It must occur very often that the shading which marks the line
between one class of legislation and another is very nice, and not
easily distinguishable.
But however difficult this may be, it is clear from the nature
of our complex form of government that whenever the statute of a
state invades the domain of legislation which belongs exclusively
to the Congress of the United States, it is void, no matter under
what class of powers it may fall or how closely allied to powers
conceded to belong to the states.
"It has been contended," says Marshall C.J.,
"that if a law passed by a state, in the exercise of its
acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by
Congress in pursuance of the Constitution, they affect the subject
and each other like equal opposing powers. But the framers of our
Constitution foresaw this state of things, and provided for it by
declaring the supremacy, not only of itself, but of the laws made
in pursuance thereof. The nullity of any act inconsistent with the
Constitution is produced by the declaration that the Constitution
is supreme."
Where the federal government has acted, he says,
"In every such case the Act of Congress or the treaty is
supreme, and the laws of the state, though enacted in the exercise
of powers not controverted, must yield to it."
9 Wheat.
22 U. S. 210.
It is said, however, that under the decisions of this Court,
there is a kind of neutral ground, especially in that covered by
the regulation of commerce, which may be occupied by the state, and
its legislation be valid so long as it interferes with no act of
Congress, or treaty of the United States. Such a proposition is
supported by the opinions of several of the judges in the
Passenger Cases; by the decisions of this Court in
Cooley v. Board of
Wardens, 12 How. 299, and by the cases of
Crandall v.
Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, and
Gilman v.
Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713. But this doctrine has
always been controverted in this Court, and has seldom, if ever,
been stated without dissent. These decisions, however, all agree,
that under the commerce clause of the Constitution, or within its
compass, there are powers, which, from their nature, are exclusive
in Congress; and, in the case of
Cooley v. Board of
Wardens, it was said that
"whatever subjects of this power are in their nature
Page 92 U. S. 273
national, or admit of one uniform system or plan of regulation,
may justly be said to be of such a nature as to require exclusive
legislation by Congress."
A regulation which imposes onerous, perhaps impossible,
conditions on those engaged in active commerce with foreign
nations, must of necessity be national in its character. It is more
than this, for it may properly be called international. It belongs
to that class of laws which concern the exterior relation of this
whole nation with other nations and governments. If our government
should make the restrictions of these burdens on commerce the
subject of a treaty, there could be no doubt that such a treaty
would fall within the power conferred on the President and the
Senate by the Constitution. It is in fact, in an eminent degree, a
subject which concerns our international relations, in regard to
which foreign nations ought to be considered and their rights
respected, whether the rule be established by treaty or by
legislation.
It is equally clear that the matter of these statutes may be,
and ought to be, the subject of a uniform system or plan. The laws
which govern the right to land passengers in the United States from
other countries ought to be the same in New York, Boston, New
Orleans, and San Francisco. A striking evidence of the truth of
this proposition is to be found in the similarity, we might almost
say in the identity, of the statutes of New York, of Louisiana, and
California, now before us for consideration in these three
cases.
It is apparent, therefore, that if there be a class of laws
which may be valid when passed by the states until the same ground
is occupied by a treaty or an act of Congress, this statute is not
of that class.
The argument has been pressed with some earnestness that
inasmuch as this statute does not come into operation until
twenty-four hours after the passenger has landed, and has mingled
with, or has the right to mingle with, the mass of the population,
he is withdrawn from the influence of any laws which Congress might
pass on the subject, and remitted to the laws of the state as its
own citizens are. It might be a sufficient answer to say that this
is a mere evasion of the protection which the foreigner has a right
to expect from the federal government when he
Page 92 U. S. 274
lands here a stranger, owing allegiance to another government,
and looking to it for such protection as grows out of his relation
to that government.
But the branch of the statute which we are considering is
directed to and operates directly on the shipowner. It holds him
responsible for what he has done before the twenty-four hours
commence. He is to give the bond or pay the money because he has
landed the passenger, and he is given twenty-four hours' time to do
this before the penalty attaches. When he is sued for this penalty,
it is not because the man has been here twenty-four hours, but
because he brought him here, and failed to give the bond or pay one
dollar and fifty cents.
The effective operation of this law commences at the other end
of the voyage. The master requires of the passenger, before he is
admitted on board, as a part of the passage money the sum which he
knows he must pay for the privilege of landing him in New York. It
is, as we have already said, in effect a tax on the passenger,
which he pays for the right to make the voyage -- a voyage only
completed when he lands on the American shore. The case does not
even require us to consider at what period after his arrival the
passenger himself passes from the sole protection of the
constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, and becomes
subject to such laws as the state may rightfully pass, as was the
case in regard to importations of merchandise in
Brown
v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 417, and in the
License Cases,
5 How. 504.
It is too clear for argument that this demand of the owner of
the vessel for a bond or money on account of every passenger landed
by him from a foreign shore is, if valid, an obligation which he
incurs by bringing the passenger here, and which is perfect the
moment he leaves the vessel.
We are of opinion that this whole subject has been confided to
Congress by the Constitution; that Congress can more appropriately
and with more acceptance exercise it than any other body known to
our law, state or national; that by providing a system of laws in
these matters, applicable to all ports and to all vessels, a
serious question, which has long been matter of contest and
complaint, may be effectually and satisfactorily settled.
Page 92 U. S. 275
Whether, in the absence of such action, the states can, or how
far they can, by appropriate legislation protect themselves against
actual paupers, vagrants, criminals, and diseased persons, arriving
in their territory from foreign countries, we do not. The portions
of the New York statute which concern persons who, on inspection,
are found to belong to these classes, are not properly before us,
because the relief sought is to the part of the statute applicable
to all passengers alike, and is the only relief which can be given
on this bill.
The decree of the circuit court of New York in the case of
Henderson v. Mayor of the City of New York is reversed,
and the case remanded, with direction to enter a decree for an
injunction in accordance with this opinion.
The statute of Louisiana which is involved in the case of
Commissioners of Immigration v. North German Lloyd is so
very similar to, if not an exact copy of, that of New York, as to
need no separate consideration. In this case, the relief sought was
against exacting the bonds or paying the commutation money as to
all passengers, which relief the circuit court granted by an
appropriate injunction, and the decree in that case is accordingly
affirmed.