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"Sec 4. Any person, firm, or corporation, common carrier, railroad company, or agent thereof, violating any provision of this act, or refusing to permit the inspection of any hides as herein provided, shall, upon conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined in any sum not exceeding $1,000 for each and every violation of the provisions of this act."

in the exercise of the police power, and such was the view of Mr. Justice Bradley in Neilson v. Garza, supra, decided on the circuit. We see no reason why an inspection law which has for its purpose the protection of the community against fraud and the promotion of the welfare of the people cannot be passed in the exercise of the police power, when the legislation tends to The purpose of these provisions is appar- subserve the purpose in view. In the terrient, and is to prevent the criminal or tory of New Mexico, and other parts of the fraudulent appropriation of cattle by re- country similarly situated, it is highly esquiring the inspection of hides and regis-sential to protect large numbers of people tration by a record which preserves the against criminal aggression upon this class name of the shipper and purchaser of the hides, as well as the brands thereon, and by which is afforded some evidence, at least, tending to identify the ownership of the cattle. It is evident that the provision as to the shipment of the hides beyond the limits of the territory is essential to this purpose, for if the hides can be surreptitiously or criminally obtained and shipped beyond such limits, without inspection or registration, a very convenient door is open to the perpetration of fraud and the prevention of discovery.

It is argued that this act lays a special burden upon interstate commerce, because, under the law, hides not offered for transportation are not required to be inspected after thirty days in slaughterhouses and not at all outside of slaughterhouses. But legislation is not void because it meets the exigencies of a particular situation. Other statutory provisions apply to property remaining in the territory, where possibly it may be found and identified. When shipped beyond the limits of the territory the means of reaching it are beyond local control, and it is the purpose of §§ 3 and 4 of the act of 1901 to preserve within the territory a record of the brands identifying the property and naming the purchaser or shipper. Certainly we cannot judicially say that there can be no valid reason for making the inspection in question apply only to hides offered for transportation beyond the territory, and that for that reason the tax is an arbitrary discrimination against interstate traffic.

of property. The exercise of the police power may and should have reference to the peculiar situation and needs of the community. The law under consideration, designed to prevent the clandestine removal of property in which a large number of the people of the territory are interested, seems to us an obviously rightful exercise of this power. It is true it affects interstate commerce, but we do not think such was its primary purpose, and while it may have an effect to levy a tax upon this class of property, the main purpose evidently was to protect the people against fraud and wrong.

It is further urged that this law is invalid because it imposes an unreasonable fee for the inspection, which goes into the treasury of the sanitary board, and the allegations of the writ tend to show that an inspector might make a considerable sum in excess of day's wages in the work of inspecting hides under the provisions of this act. The law being otherwise valid, the amount of the inspection fee is not a judicial question; it rests with the legislature to fix the amount, and it can only present a valid objection when it is shown that it is so unreasonable and disproportionate to the services rendered as to attack the good faith of the law. Patapsco Guano Co. v. Board of Agriculture, 171 U. S. 345–350, 43 L. ed. 191-193, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 862.

We are of the opinion that the allegations of the relator as to the cost of inspection, compared with the fees authorized to be charged, and the profit which might accrue to the inspector, in view of other and necessary incidental expense connected with the inspection and registration, do not bring the case within that class which holds that, under the guise of inspection, other and different purposes are to be subserved, thus rendering the legislation invalid.

It is urged further that this is a mere revenue law and in no just sense an inspection law, and, therefore, not within the police power conferred upon the territory. It is true that inspection laws ordinarily have for their object the improvement of quality, and to protect the community against fraud Upon the whole case, we are of the opinand imposition in the character of the ar- ion that, in the absence of congressional ticle received for sale or to be exported, but legislation covering the subject, and making in the Patapsco Case, supra, it was direct- a different provision, the act in controversy ly recognized that inspection laws such as is a valid exercise of the police power of the one under consideration might be passed the territory, and not in violation of the

Constitution giving exclusive power power to Congress in the regulation of interstate com

merce.

Affirmed.

REUBEN HODGES, William R. Clampit, and Wash McKinney, Plffs. in Err.,

v.

UNITED STATES.†

Civil rights-power of Congress to protect

against individual interference.

Congress was not empowered by U. S. Const., 13th Amend., to make it an offense against the United States, cognizable in the Federal courts, for private individuals to compel negro citizens, by intimidation and force, to desist from performing their contracts of employment, but the remedy must be sought through state action and in state tribunals, subject to the supervision of the Supreme Court of the United States by writ of error in proper cases.*

[No. 14.]

Submitted October 19, 1905. Ordered for oral argument November 6, 1905. Argued April 23, 1906. Decided May 28, 1906.

IN ERROR to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Arkansas to review a judgment convicting individual citizens of compelling negro citizens, by force and intimidation, to desist from performing their contracts of employment. Reversed and remanded with instructions to sustain a demurrer to the in

dictment.

Statement by Mr. Justice Brewer:

On October 8, 1903, the grand jury returned into the district court of the United States for the eastern district of Arkansas an indictment charging that the defendants (now plaintiffs in error), with others, "did knowingly, wilfully, and unlawfully conspire to oppress, threaten, and intimidate Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton, citizens of the United States of African descent, in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights and privileges secured to them and each of them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and because of their having exercised the same, to wit: The said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George

[This case was decided at the October, 1905, term, but dissent was not filed until October 22, 1906.-Ed.1

*Ed. Note.-For cases in point, see vol. 13, Cent. Dig. Courts, § 824.

Shelton, being then and there persons of African descent and citizens of the United States and of the state of Arkansas, had then and there made and entered into contracts and agreements with James A. Davis and James S. Hodges, persons then and there doing business under the name of Davis & Hodges as copartners, carrying on the business of manufacturers of lumber at White Hall, in said county, the said contracts being for the employment by said firm of the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton as laborers and workmen in and about their said manufacturing establishment, by which contracts the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton were, on their part, to perform labor and services at said manufactory, and were to receive, on the other hand, for their labor and services, compensation, the same being a right and privilege conferred upon them by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the laws passed in pursuance thereof, and being a right white citizens thereof, and while the said similar to that enjoyed in said state by the Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton were in the enjoyment of said right and privilege the said defendants did knowingly, wilfully, and unlawfully conspire as to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate them in the free exercise and enjoyment of said right and privilege, and because of their having so exercised the same, and because they were citizens of African descent, enjoying said right, by then and there notifying the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan they must abandon said contracts and their Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton that said work at said mill and cease to perform further compensation for said labor, and any further labor thereat, or receive any by threatening, in case they did not so thereafter then and there wilfully and unabandon said work, to injure them, and by lawfully marching and moving in a body to and against the place of business of the said firm while the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton were engaged thereat, and while they were in the performance of said contracts therethere armed with deadly weapons, threaton, the said defendants being then and ening and intimidating the said workmen there employed, with the purpose of compelling them, by violence and threats and

aforesaid

otherwise, to remove from said place of "Sec. 5508. If two or more persons conbusiness, to stop said work, and to cease the spire to injure, oppress, threaten, or inenjoyment of said right and privilege, and timidate any citizen in the free exercise or by then and there wilfully, deliberately, and enjoyment of any right or privilege secured unlawfully compelling said Berry Winn, to him by the Constitution or laws of the Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe United States, or because of his having so McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George exercised the same; or if two or more perShelton to quit said work and abandon said sons go in disguise on the highway, or on place and cease the free enjoyment of all the premises of another, with intent to preadvantages under said contracts, the same vent or hinder his free exercise or enjoybeing so done by said defendants and each of ment of any right or privilege so secured,— them for the purpose of driving the said they shall be fined not more than five thouBerry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe sand dollars and imprisoned not more than Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, ten years; and shall, moreover, be thereand George Shelton from said place of busi- after ineligible to any office or place of ness and from their labor because they were honor, profit or trust created by the colored men and citizens of African de- Constitution or laws of the United States." scent, contrary to the form of the statute in "Sec. 5510. Every person who, under color such case made and provided, and against of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, the peace and dignity of the United States." A demurrer to this indictment, on the ground that the offense created by §§ 1977 and 5508, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 1259, 3712), under which it was found, was not within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, but was judicially cognizable by state tribunals only, was overruled, a trial had, and the three plaintiffs in error found guilty, sentenced punishment of citizens, shall be punished separately to imprisonment for different terms and to fine, and to be thereafter ineligible to any office of profit or trust created by the Constitution or laws. of the United States. Sections 1977, 1978, 1979, 5508, and 5510 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 1259-1262, 3712, 3713) read as follows:

"Sec. 1977. All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every state and territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

"Sec. 1978. All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every state and territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.

or custom, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any state or territory to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such inhabitant being an alien, or by reason of his color or race, than are prescribed for the

by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not more than one year, or by both."

There being constitutional questions involved, the judgment was brought directly to this court on writ of error.

Messrs. James P. Clarke, L. C. Going, and J. F. Gautney for plaintiffs in error.

Attorney General Moody, Assistant Attorney General Purdy, and Mr. Otis J. Carlton, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

While the indictment was founded on §§ 1977 and 5508, we have quoted other sections to show the scope of the legislation of Congress on the general question involved.

That prior to the three post bellum amendments to the Constitution the national government had no jurisdiction over a wrong like that charged in this indictment "Sec. 1979. Every person who, under color is conceded; that the 14th and 15th Amendof any statute, ordinance, regulation, cus-ments do not justify the legislation is also tom, or usage of any state or territory, sub- beyond dispute, for they, as repeatedly held, jects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen are restrictions upon state action, and no of the United States or other person with- action on the part of the state is complained in the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of. Unless, therefore, the 13th Amendment of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."

vests in the nation the jurisdiction claimed, the remedy must be sought through state action and in state tribunals, subject to the supervision of this court by writ of error in proper cases.

In the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, 21 L. ed. 394, 408, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, Fed. Cas. No. 3230:

of that Amendment it is well to bear in mind the words of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, & Wheat. 1, 188, 6 L. ed. 23, 68, which, though spoken more than four score years ago, are still the rule of construction of constitutional provisions: "As men whose intentions require no concealment generally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the ideas

patriots who framed our Constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their nat ural sense, and to have intended what they have said."

The 13th Amendment reads:

"Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

""The inquiry,' he says, 'is, What are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states? We feel no hesitation they intend to convey, the enlightened in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are fundamental; which belong of right to the citizens of all free governments, and which have at all times been enjoyed by citizens of the several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are, it would be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may all, however, be comprehended under the following general heads: protection by the government, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the government may prescribe for the general good of the whole."" And after referring to other cases this nunciation. All understand by these terms court added (p. 77, L. ed. p. 409):

"It would be the vainest show of learning to attempt to prove by citations of authority, that up to the adoption of the recent amendments no claim or pretense was set up that those rights depended on the Federal government for their existence or protection, beyond the very few express limitations which the Federal Constitution imposed upon the states,-such, for instance, as the prohibition against ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts. But, with the exception of these and a few other restrictions, the entire domain of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the states, as above defined, lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the states, and without that of the Federal government."

Notwithstanding the adoption of these three amendments, the national government still remains one of of enumerated powers, and the 10th Amendment, which reads, "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," is not shorn of its vitality. True, the 13th Amendment grants certain specified and additional power to Congress, but any congressional legislation directed against individual action which was not warranted before the 13th Amendment must find authority in it. And in interpreting the scope

"Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The meaning of this is as clear as language can make it. The things denounced are slavery and involuntary servitude, and Congress is given power to enforce that de

a condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another. While the inciting cause of the Amendment was the emancipation of the colored race, yet it is not an attempt to commit that race to the care of the nation. It is the denunciation of a condition, and not a declaration in favor of a particular people. It reaches every race and every individual, and if in any respect it commits one race to the nation, it commits every race and every individual thereof. Slavery or involuntary servitude of the Chinese, of the Italian, of the Anglo-Saxon, are as much within its compass as slavery or involuntary servitude of the African. Of this Amendment it was said by Mr. Justice Miller in Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 69, 21 L. ed. 406: "Its two short sections seem hardly to admit of construction." And again: "To withdraw the mind from the contemplation of this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the human race within the jurisdiction of this government . . . requires an effort, to say the least of it."

A reference to the definitions in the dictionaries of words whose meaning is so thoroughly understood by all seems an affectation, yet in Webster slavery is defined as "the state of entire subjection of one person to the will of another," and a slave is said to be "a person who is held in bondage to another." to another." Even the secondary meaning given recognizes the fact of subjection, as

"one who has lost the power of resistance; United States. But if, as we have seen, one who surrenders himself to any power whatever; as a slave to passion, to lust, to strong drink, to ambition," and servitude is by the same authority declared to be "the state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a master."

that denounces a condition possible for all races and all individuals, then a like wrong perpetrated by white men upon a Chinese, or by black men upon a white man, or by any men upon any man on account of his race, would come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and that protection of individual rights which, prior to the 13th Amendment, was unquestionably within the jurisdiction solely of the states, would, by virtue of that Amendment, be transferred to the nation, and subject to the legislation of Congress.

It is said, however, that one of the disabilities of slavery, one of the indicia of its existence, was a lack of power to make or perform contracts, and that when these defendants, by intimidation and force, compelled the colored men named in the indictment to desist from performing their con- But that it was not the intent of the tract, they, to that extent, reduced those Amendment to denounce every act done to parties to a condition of slavery, that is, an individual which was wrong if done to a of subjection to the will of defendants, and free man, and yet justified in a condition of deprived them of a freeman's power to per-slavery, and to give authority to Congress form his contract. But every wrong done to enforce such denunciation, consider the to an individual by another, acting singly legislation in respect to the Chinese. In or in concert with others, operates pro tanto to abridge some of the freedom to which the individual is entitled. A freeman has a right to be protected in his person from an assault and battery. He is entitled to hold his property safe from trespass or appropriation; but no mere personal assault or trespass or appropriation operates to reduce the individual to a condition of slavery. Indeed, this is conceded by counsel for the government, for in their brief (after referring to certain decisions of this court) it is said:

"With these decisions, and many others that might be cited, before us, it is vain to contend that the Federal Constitution secures to a citizen of the United States the right to work at a given occupation or particular calling free from injury, oppression, or interference by individual

citizens.

"Even though such right be a natural or inalienable right, the duty of protecting the citizen in the enjoyment of such right, free from individual interference, rests alone with the state.

slave times in the slave states not infre-
quently every free negro was required to
carry with him a copy of a judicial decree or
other evidence of his right to freedom or
be subject to arrest. That was one of the
incidents or badges of slavery. By the act
of May 5, 1892 [27 Stat. at L. 25, chap. 60,
U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1319], Congress
required all Chinese laborers within the
limits of the United States to apply for a
certificate, and any one who, after one year
from the passage of the act, should be found
within the jurisdiction of the United States
without such certificate, might be arrested
and deported. In Fong Yue Ting v. United
States, 149 U. S. 698, 37 L. ed. 905, 13
Sup. Ct. Rep. 1016, the validity of the
Chinese deportation act
deportation act was presented,
elaborately argued, and fully considered by
this court. While there was a division of
opinion, yet at no time during the progress
of the litigation, and by no individual,
counsel, or court connected with it, was it
suggested that the requiring of such a
certificate was evidence of a condition of
slavery, or prohibited by the 13th Amend-
ment.

"Unless, therefore, the additional element, to wit, the infliction of an injury upon one One thing more: at the close of the Civil individual citizen by another, solely on ac- War, when the problem of the emancipated count of his color, be sufficient ground to slaves was before the nation, it might have redress such injury, the individual citizen left them in a condition of alienage, or essuffering such injury must be left for re-tablished them as wards of the government, dress of his grievance to the state laws." like the Indian tribes, and thus retained for The logic of this concession points ir- the nation jurisdiction over them, or it resistibly to the contention that the 13th might, as it did, give them citizenship. It Amendment operates only to protect the chose the latter. By the 14th Amendment it African race. This is evident from the made citizens of all born within the limits of fact that nowhere in the record does it ap- the United States and subject to its jurispear that the parties charged to have been diction. By the 15th it prohibited any wronged by the defendants had ever been state from denying the right of suffrage themselves slaves, or were the descendants on account of race, color, or previous of slaves. They took no more from the condition of servitude, and by the 13th Amendment than any other citizens of the it forbade slavery or involuntary servitude

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