People of the State of New York v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique

• Decision Date: 05 February 1883
• Citation: 107 U.S. 59,2 S.Ct. 87,27 L.Ed. 383
• Parties: PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK v. COMPAGNIE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

107 U.S. 59

2 S.Ct. 87

27 L.Ed. 383

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK v. COMPAGNIE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE.

February 5, 1883.

William M. Evarts, Lewis Sanders, and Geo. N. Sanders, for plaintiff in error.

Frederick R. Coudert, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

This was an action commenced in the court of common pleas for the city and county of New york to recover of the defendant the sum of one dollar for each alien passenger brought into New York by its vessels, for whom a tax has not before been paid, with penalties and interest. The case was removed into the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York, which court, on demurrer to the complaint, rendered a judgment in favor of the defendant. To that judgment this writ of error is prosecuted.

The tax in this case is demanded under section 1 of a statute of New York, passed May 31, 1881, entitled 'An act to raise money for the execution of the inspection laws of the state of New York.' The section reads thus:

'Section 1. There shall be levied and collected a duty of one dollar for each and every alien passenger who shall come by vessel from a foreign port to the port of New York for whom a tax has not heretofore been paid, the same to be paid to the chamberlain of the city of New York by the master, owner, agent, or consignee of every such vessel within 24 hours atter the entry thereof into the port of New York.'

It has been so repeatedly decided by this court that such a tax as this is a regulation of commerce with foreign nations, confided by the constitution to the exclusive control of congress, and this court has so recently considered the whole subject in regard to similar statutes of the states of New York, Louisiana, and California, that unless we are prepared to reverse our decisions, and the principles on which they are based, in the cases of Henderson v. Mayor of New York and Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 259-275, there is little to say beyond affirming the judgment of the circuit court, which was based on those decisions.

The argument mainly relied on in the present case is that the new statute of New York, passed after her former statutes had been declared void in the Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, and in the recent case of Henderson v. Mayor, is in aid of the inspection laws of the state. This argument is supposed to derive support from another statute, passed three days earlier, entitled 'An act for the inspection of alien emigrants and their effects by the commissioners of emigration.'

This act empowers and directs the commissioners of emigration 'to inspect the persons and effects of all persons arriving by vessel at the port of New York from any foreign country, as far as may be necessary to ascertain who among them are habitual criminals, or pauper lunatics, idiots, or imbeciles, or deaf, dumb, blind, infirm, or orphan persons, without means or capacity to support themselves and subject to become public charge, and whether their persons or effects are affected with any infectious or contagious disease, and whether their effects contain any criminal implements or contrivances.'

Subsequent sections direct how such characters, if found, shall be dealt with by the board. Other sections of the act of May 31st direct the chamberlain of the city to pay over to the commissioners of emigration all such sums of money as may be necessary for the execution of the inspection laws of the state of New York, and the net produce of all duties received by him under that act, after the necessary payments to the commissioners of emigration, to the treasury of the United States.

These two statutes, construed together, it is argued, are inspection laws within the meaning of article 1, section 10, clause 2, of the constitution of the United States, to-wit:

'No state shall, without the consent of the congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any state on imports or exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States, and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the congress.'

What laws may be properly classed as inspection laws, under this provision of the constitution, must be determined largely by the nature of the inspection laws of the states at the time the constitution was framed. In the opinion of this court in the case of Turner v. State, ante, 44, delivered by Mr. Justice BLATCHFORD contemporaneously with the one in the present case, an elaborate...