State v. Judges of Inferior Court of Common Pleas of Hudson County

• Decision Date: 30 August 1895
• Citation: 32 A. 743,58 N.J.L. 97
• Parties: STATE ex rel. RUSHWORTH v. JUDGES OF INFERIOR COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF HUDSON COUNTY.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

32 A. 743

58 N.J.L. 97

STATE ex rel. RUSHWORTH

v. JUDGES OF INFERIOR COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF HUDSON COUNTY.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Aug. 30, 1895.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Application for mandamus by the state, on the relation of Albert Rushworth, to compel the judges of the Hudson county common pleas to naturalize relator. Denied.

Argued June term, 1895, before VAN SYCKEL and LIPPINCOTT, JJ.

W. D. Daly, for relator.

VAN SYCKEL, J. An act of the legislature passed March 26, 1895, entitled "An act concerning naturalization and regulating procedure in cases of naturalization in courts of this state, and establishing uniform fees of clerks and judges in naturalization cases," provides, among other things, that "no person shall hereafter be naturalized or admitted to be a citizen of the United States by any court of this state within the thirty days next preceding any national, state, municipal, general, special, local or charter election." The relator was refused naturalization by the Hudson county pleas solely upon the ground that his application was made within 30 days next preceding the election for municipal officers in the town of West Hoboken. The only question submitted to the judgment of this court is whether the above-recited provision of the act of 1895 is constitutional.

The federal constitution provides that "congress shall have power to establish a uniform rale of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States." Article 1, § 8, cl. 4. Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution (volume 2, § 1104), says: "It follows, from the very nature of the power, that, to be useful, it must be exclusive, for a concurrent power in the states would bring back all the evils and embarrassments which the uniform rule of the constitution was designed to remedy; and accordingly, though there was a momentary hesitation, when the constitution first went into operation, whether the power might not still be exercised by the states, subject only to the control of congress, so far as the legislation of the latter extended, as the supreme law, yet the power is now firmly established to be exclusive." Mr. Hamilton, in the Federalist (No. 32), says that the power given to congress to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States must necessarily be exclusive, because, if each state had power to prescribe a distinct rule, there could be no uniform rule. It is entirely settled that no state can pass naturalization laws. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 48; 1 Kent, Comm. § 424. The United States statute provides for the naturalization of aliens by application to a circuit or district court of the United Slates, or a district court or supreme court of record of any of the states, having common-law jurisdiction and a seal and clerk. The United States government has thus selected the state courts as one of its agencies to hear and act upon applications for naturalization.

While it must be conceded that the state can pass no law which regulates the subject of naturalization, or the order of business in the federal courts, the solution of the controversy in this case, in my judgment, turns upon the question whether the state may not regulate the order of business in its own courts in relation to this subject, or refuse altogether to permit its courts to entertain applications for naturalization. Article 3, § 2, of the federal constitution provides "that the judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and the treaties made or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states; and between a state or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects." Whether congress can permit the state courts to exercise jurisdiction over any of these subjects has been a source of much controversy. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304. Justice Washington, in Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 27, said that "he held it to be perfectly clear that congress cannot confer jurisdiction upon any courts but such as exist under the constitution and laws of the United States, although the state courts may exercise jurisdiction in cases authorized by the laws of the state, and not prohibited by the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts." In ...