Opinion of the Court--Mr. Justice Field. [September, But independent of this consideration, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that much which was formerly said upon the power of the State in this respect, grew out of the necessity which the Southern States, in which the institution of slavery existed, felt of excluding free negroes from their limits. As in some States negroes were citizens, the right to exclude them from the Slave States could only be maintained by the assertion of a power to exclude all persons whom they might deem dangerous or injurious to their interests. But at this day no such power would be asserted, or if asserted, allowed, of New York, in the particular case under consideration, was repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and void, and accordingly reversed the judgment of the Court of Errors of New York. In the case of Norris v. The City of Boston, the facts were substantially as follows: Norris, an inhabitant of St. Johns, in the province of New Brunswick, Kingdom of Great Britain, was master of a vessel belonging to the port of St. Johns; he arrived with nineteen alien passengers at the port of Boston. Prior to landing, he was compelled to pay, under a law of Massachusetts, to the city of Boston, two dollars for each passenger. The statute of Massachusetts authorized the municipal authorities to ap point examiners, whose duty it was to examine the condition of all passengers on board of any vessel arriving in port. If, upon such examination, there were found among said passengers "any lunatic, idiot, maimed, aged or infirm person," incompetent, in the opinion of the examining officer, to maintain himself, or who had been a pauper in another country, the passenger was not permitted to land, until the master, owner, consignee or agent of the vessel gave to the city a bond in the sum of one thousand dollars, with sufficient sureties, that such lunatic or indigent passenger would not become a city, town or State charge within ten years from the date of the bond, and for all alien passengers, other than those already specified, the master was required to pay two dollars for each passenger before they could land. Appropriate penalties were contained in the statute to secure compliance with its terms. Norris paid the two dollars for each passenger, as prescribed by the statute, under protest, landed his passengers, and thereupon instituted suit for the recovery of the money he had thus been compelled to pay. In the State courts judgment passed in favor of the defendant, when the case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States upon a writ of error, where the judgment was reversed; that court holding the statute of Massachusetts, under which payment of the money was compelled, was unconstitutional and void. In the opinions of the justices in these celebrated cases, language is also used as in the case in 11 Peters, expressive of the right of the State, in exercise of its police power, to exclude persons from her limits; but from the statement of the cases, it is obvious that no such question was before the court. (See note at end of this opinion.) 1874.] Opinion of the Court-Mr. Justice Field. in any Federal court. And the most serious consequences affecting the relations of the nation with other countries might, and undoubtedly would, follow from any attempt at its exercise. Its maintenance would enable any State to involve the nation in war, however disposed to peace the people at large might be. Where the evil apprehended by the State from the ingress of foreigners is that such foreigners will disregard the laws of the State, and thus be injurious to its peace, the remedy lies in the more vigorous enforcement of the laws, not in the exclusion of the parties. Gambling is considered by most States to be injurious to the morals of their people, and is made a public offense. It would hardly be considered as a legitimate exercise of the police power of the States to prevent a foreigner who had been a gambler in his own country from landing in ours. If, after landing, he pursues his former occupation, fine him, and, if he persists in it, imprison him, and the evil will be remedied. In some States the manufacture and sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors are forbidden and punished as a misdemeanor. If the foreigner coming to our shores is a manufacturer or dealer in such liquors, it would be deemed an illegitimate exercise of the police power to exclude him, on account of his calling, from the State. The remedy against any apprehended manufacture and sale would lie in such case in the enforcement of the penal laws of the State. So if lewd women, or lewd men, even if the latter be of that baser sort, who, when Paul preached at Thessalonica, set all the city in an uproar (Acts xvii, verse 5), land on our shores, the remedy against any subsequent lewd conduct on their part must be found in good laws or good municipal regulations and a vigorous police. It is evident that if the possible violation of the laws of the State by an immigrant, or the supposed immorality of his past life or profession, where that immorality has not already resulted in a conviction for a felony, is to determine his right to land and to reside in the State, or to pass through into other and interior States, a door will be opened to all sorts of oppression. The doctrine now asserted by counsel Opinion of the Court-Mr. Justice Field. [September, for the commissioner of immigration, if maintained, would certainly be invoked, and at no distant day, when other parties, besides low and despised Chinese women, are the subjects of its application, and would then be seen to be a grievous departure from principle. I am aware of the very general feeling prevailing in this State against the Chinese, and in opposition to the extension of any encouragement to their immigration hither. It is felt that the dissimilarity in physical characteristics, in language, in manners, religion and habits, will always prevent any possible assimilation of them with our people. Admitting that there is ground for this feeling, it does not justify any legislation for their exclusion, which might not be adopted against the inhabitants of the most favored nations of the Caucasian race, and of Christian faith. If their further immigration is to be stopped, recourse must be had to the Federal government, where the whole power over this subject lies. The State cannot exclude them arbitrarily, nor accomplish the same end by attributing to them a possible violation of its municipal laws. It is certainly desirable that all lewdness, especially when it takes the form of prostitution, should be suppressed, and that the most stringent measures to accomplish that end should be adopted. But I have little respect for that discriminating virtue which is shocked when a frail child of China is landed on our shores, and yet allows the bedizened and painted harlot of other countries to parade our streets and open her hells in broad day, without molestation and without censure. By the fifth article of the treaty between the United States and China, adopted on the twenty-eighth of July, 1868, the United States and the Emperor of China recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to ffiother, for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents. The sixth article declares that citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities or exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may 1874.1 Opinion of the Court-Mr. Justice Field. there be enjoyed by citizens or subjects of the most favored nation; and, reciprocally, that Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. The only limitation upon the free ingress into the United States and egress from them of subjects of China is the limitation which is applied to citizens or subjects of the most favored nation; and as the general government has not seen fit to attach any limitation to the ingress of subjects of those nations, none can be applied to the subjects of China. And the power of exclusion by the State, as we have already said, extends only to convicts, lepers and persons incurably diseased, and to paupers and persons who, from physical causes, are likely to become a public charge. The detention of the petitioner is therefore unlawful under the treaty. But there is another view of this case equally conclusive for the discharge of the petitioner, which is founded upon the legislation of Congress since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment in its first section designates who are citizens of the United States, and then declares that no State shall make or enforce any law which abridges their privileges and immunities. It also enacts that no State shall deprive any person (dropping the distinctive designation of citizens) of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. The great fundamental rights of all citizens are thus secured against any State deprivation, and all persons, whether native or foreign, high or low, are, whilst within the jurisdiction of the United States, entitled to the equal protection of the laws. Discriminating and partial legislation, favoring particular persons, or against particular persons of the same class, is now prohibited. Equality of privilege is the constitutional right of all citizens, and equality of protection is the constitutional right of all persons. And equality of protection implies not only equal accessibility to the courts for the prevention or redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of rights, but equal exemp Opinion of the Court--Mr. Justice Field. [September, tion with others of the same class from all charges and burdens of every kind. Within these limits the power of the State exists, as it did previously to the adoption of the amendment, over all matters of internal police. And within these limits the act of Congress of May 31, 1870, restricts the action of the State with respect to foreigners immigrating to our country. "No tax or charge," says the act, "shall be imposed or enforced by any State upon any person immigrating thereto from a foreign country which is not equally imposed or enforced upon every person immigrating to such State from any other foreign country, and any law of any State in conflict with this provision is hereby declared null and void." (16 Statutes at Large, 144.) By the term charge, as here used, is meant any onerous condition, it being the evident intention of the act to prevent any such condition from being imposed upon any person immigrating to the country which is not equally imposed upon all other immigrants, at least upon all others of the same class. It was passed under and accords with the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment. A condition which makes the right of the immigrant to land depend upon the execution of a bond by a third party, not under his control, and whom he cannot constrain by any legal proceedings, and whose execution of the bond can only be obtained upon such terms as he may exact, is as onerous as any charge which can well be imposed, and must, if valid, generally lead, as in the present case, to the exclusion of the immigrant. The statute of California which we have been considering imposes this onerous condition upon persons of particular classes on their arrival in the ports of the State by vessel, but leaves all other foreigners of the same classes entering the State in any other way, by land from the British possessions or Mexico, or over the plains by railway, exempt from any charge. The statute is therefore in direct conflict with the act of Congress. It follows, from the views thus expressed, that the petitioner must be discharged from further restraint of her liberty; and it is so ordered. |