Allen v. Wyckoff

• Decision Date: 18 February 1886
• Citation: 48 N.J.L. 90,2 A. 659
• Parties: ALLEN v. WYCKOFF.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

2 A. 659

48 N.J.L. 90

ALLEN

v. WYCKOFF.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

February 18, 1886.

Craig A. Marsh, for prosecutor.

DIXON, J. The prosecutor was sued for the penalty of $50 prescribed for non-residents of this state who kill quail without complying with the by-laws of the game protective societies, according to "An act for the protection of game and game-fish," approved April 4, 1878. P. L. 1878, p. 293. At the trial he took the ground that the statute was unconstitutional, but his position was not sustained, and a judgment for the penalty was rendered against him, which he now seeks to reverse.

He insists that the act violates the federal and state constitutions, and is also invalid as an unwarranted delegation of legislative power. Two clauses of the United States constitution are invoked: Section 2 of article 4, which declares that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states;" and part of section 1 of the fourteenth amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

A comparison of the statute under review with the other game laws of the state shows that, with regard to hunting game, greater restrictions are placed upon non-residents than upon residents, and that the penalties incurred by the former for violating the restrictions imposed are severer than those incurred by the latter. The discriminations of the statute are not based upon the fact of citizenship; nor does it appear by the record before us that the prosecutor was a citizen either of a sister state or of the United States. Consequently section 2 of article 4, and so much of the fourteenth amendment as secures the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the nation, are not applicable to the case in hand. It is plain, also, that this statute does not deprive the prosecutor of life, liberty, or property.

The only clause of the federal constitution, therefore, which on the surface seems to have any pertinency is that forbidding a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. But even this appearance is dissipated, I think, when we examine the decision of the supreme court of the United States in the Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall. 36. It was there argued that a state law which authorized a corporation to establish stock-yards and slaughter-houses in and near New Orleans, and prohibited all other persons from slaughtering cattle or keeping stock-yards elsewhere, within an area of about 1,154 square miles around the city, was an infringement of this fourteenth amendment; that the right to use one's land, skill, and labor in any lawful business for the acquisition of property was a fundamental civil right, which, according to any just theory of government, was entitled to the protection of the law; that, therefore, while the right might of course be regulated by state legislation, this amendment required that the laws for such purpose should operate equally upon all persons within the jurisdiction; and that the statute, securing such a right to some persons, and denying it to others in substantially similar situation, was invalid. But the court decided that laws of this nature were not within the purview of this clause of the amendment; that it had been framed to remedy the evils arising from the existence of laws in the states where the newly-emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class; and that this design must be kept in view in determining the scope and effect of the provision; the learned justice who spoke for the court saying: "We doubt very much whether any action of a state not directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will even be held to come within the...