Hart v. State

• Decision Date: 22 March 1905
• Citation: 60 A. 457,100 Md. 595
• Parties: HART v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

60 A. 457

100 Md. 595

HART v. STATE.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 22, 1905

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cecil County.

William H.H. Hart was convicted of refusing to occupy a car and compartment to which he had been assigned by the conductor on the train on which he was riding, pursuant to Acts 1904, p 186, c. 109, and he appeals. Reversed.

Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and FOWLER, BRISCOE, BOYD, PAGE SCHMUCKER, and JONES, JJ.

Henry M. McCullough, for appellant.

Wm. S Bryan, Atty. Gen., for the State.

BOYD J.

The appellant was indicted under the provisions of chapter 109 p. 186, of the Acts of 1904 of the General Assembly of Maryland, for refusing to occupy a car and compartment to which he had been assigned by the conductor of the train on which he was riding. A demurrer to the indictment was filed by the traverser, which was overruled by the court, and he then filed a plea in abatement, which was demurred to by the state's attorney, and the demurrer was sustained. The traverser was then tried and convicted, and, after overruling a motion in arrest of judgment, the court imposed a fine of $5 on him. From that judgment this appeal was taken.

The indictment charges that the appellant, being of the colored race, was a passenger on a train of the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad Company operating cars and coaches by steam upon its railroad in the state of Maryland, "on and under a ticket which he had purchased in the city of New York for continuous transportation therefrom by and over said railroad through the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware and said state of Maryland to the city of Washington." The plea goes more in detail, but it will not be necessary to quote from it. The specific question to be determined is whether the above-mentioned act of assembly is in conflict with that part of article 1, § 8, of the Constitution of the United States, known as the "Commerce Clause," in so far as that act affects interstate passengers.

Section 1 of the act provides: "That all railroad companies and corporations, and all persons running or operating cars or coaches by steam on any railroad line or track in the state of Maryland, for the transportation of passengers, are hereby required to provide separate cars or coaches for the travel and transportation of the white and colored passengers on their respective lines of railroad;" and then provides that a compartment of a car or coach, divided as therein stated, shall be deemed a separate car or coach within the meaning of the act. Section 2 prohibits any difference or discrimination in quality of, or convenience or accommodation in, the cars, etc. Section 3 imposes a fine of not less than $300 nor more than $1,000 upon the carrier for violation of the provisions of the act. Section 4 confers the right and imposes the duty upon conductors and managers to assign white and colored passengers to their respective cars, and provides that a passenger refusing to occupy the car to which he is assigned on indictment and conviction thereof may be fined not less than $5 nor more than $50, or confined in jail not less than 30 days, or both, in the discretion of the court. Section 5 imposes a fine on any conductor or manager failing or refusing to perform the duties imposed on him by section 4. Section 6 authorizes the conductor or manager in charge of the train to assign and set apart a portion of the car assigned to passengers of one color to those of the other color when the car intended for the latter is completely filled, if no extra car can be obtained, and the increased number of passengers could not be foreseen. Section 7 excepts from the operation of the act employés of railroads, nurses, officers in charge of prisoners, and the prisoners, transportation of passengers in caboose cars attached to freight trains, parlor and sleeping cars, and through express trains that do no local business.

It seems to be well settled that a common carrier has the power, in the absence of statutory provision, to adopt regulations providing separate accommodations for white and colored passengers, provided, of course, no discrimination is made. It was said in West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad Company v. Miles, 55 Pa. 209, 93 Am.Dec. 744, that prior to the act of March 22, 1867, declaring it an offense for railroad companies to make any distinction between passengers on account of race or color, "there was that natural, legal, and customary difference between the white and black races in this state which makes their separation as passengers in a public conveyance the subject of a sound regulation to secure order, promote comfort, preserve the peace, and maintain the rights, both of carriers and passengers." That was a suit by a colored woman, who had been ejected from a car for refusing to obey a rule of the company requiring conductors to make colored persons sit in one end of the car. The case, which was decided in favor of the plaintiff in the court below, was reversed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Justice Agnew, in delivering the opinion, said: "In order to preserve and enforce his [the conductor's] authority as the servant of the company, it must have a power to establish proper regulations for the carriage of passengers. It is much easier to prevent difficulties among passengers by regulations for their proper separation than it is to quell them. The danger to the peace engendered by the feeling of aversion between individuals of the different races cannot be denied. It is the fact with which the company must deal. If a negro take his seat beside a white man or his wife or daughter, the law cannot repress the anger or conquer the aversion which some will feel. However unjust it may be to indulge the feeling, human infirmity is not always proof against it. It is much wiser to avert the consequences of this repulsion of race by separation than to punish afterward the breach of the peace it may have caused." There are numerous cases to the same effect, many of which are cited in Chilton v. St. Louis & I.M.R. Co., 114 Mo. 88, 21 S.W. 457, 19 L.R.A. 269; Smith v. Chamberlain, 38 S.O. 529, 17 S.E. 371, 19 L.R.A. 710; Ex parte Plessy, 45 La.Ann. 80, 11 So. 948, 18 L.R.A. 639; Bowie v. Birmingham Ry. & Electric Co., 125 Ala. 397, 27 So. 1016, 50 L.R.A. 632, 82 Am.St.Rep. 247; and the notes to those cases, as reported in the L.R.A. series.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized that doctrine, and has also determined that a state statute requiring separate accommodations for white and colored persons is not contrary to the thirteenth or fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 Sup.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256, affirming Ex parte Plessy, supra. Justice Brown, in delivering the opinion of the court, said the question was whether the statute was a reasonable regulation, and with respect to that there must be a large discretion given to the Legislature, that "in determining the question of reasonableness it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes, or even requires, the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of State Legislatures." The case last mentioned did not involve the question of interstate commerce, but was limited to the right of the state to require the carrier to provide separate accommodations for the two races within the state. This provision of the Constitution has been a fruitful source of litigation from the early days of our government to the present time. The line of demarkation between cases in which it has been held that the constitutional provision was violated by state statutes and those in which the contrary conclusion was reached cannot always be easily traced. It has often happened that the Supreme Court has been called upon to determine under this clause of the Constitution questions of a most delicate character. To sustain the necessary powers of the general government over interstate dealings without injuriously affecting the welfare of the people of the state is not always free from difficulty, and it is therefore not strange that apparently inconsistent positions have sometimes been taken. The power to regulate interstate commerce is undoubtedly vested exclusively in Congress, but the states may enact valid police laws, which merely incidentally affect such commerce, if they do not conflict with some act of Congress on the subject.

The Attorney General, in his brief filed in this case, states his contention to be "that the police regulations of a state, which are valid in themselves, and which have a real and substantial relation to any head of the police power, are binding upon persons and corporations engaged in interstate commerce," and that persons traveling through the state must comply with those regulations, which are enacted "for the purpose of furthering the public health, the public morals, the public convenience, or the public order." He conceded at the argument that, unless the statute now under consideration was within the police powers of the state, it was invalid in so far as it affected interstate passengers; and as that is undoubtedly so we must consider the question from that standpoint. It may be well at this point to recall some of the definitions or...