“ But ask the emigrant, ask the destitute, ask the poor citizen, ask the thronging masses who make up the population of a great city, whom the strong bonds of poverty and affection chain to their homes, 'Come weal, come woe.' They will pray you to preserve unimpaired the health laws of the city, the quarantine, and its hospital, which have so long proved an efficient protection to them and their families. They will conjure you, with the agonizing earnestness of men who feel that their lives are concerned in what they ask. ”

“ A vast mass of means hitherto left exclusively to the States, as more advantageous to the country, will be immediately seized upon and appropriated by the Federal government, not by virtue of any new legislation, but by this court sanctioning the theory of 'non-regulation.' No discretion is left to the legislature. The Constitution becomes self-acting. It seizes, proprio vigore, when any power is put in action by the slightest act of legislation on the subject, upon all the means which might by any possibility be brought within its reach. The concurrence of State power becomes an empty sound. ”

“ TURNER.
Of the decision of the court just given, a solemn sense of duty compels me to declare my disapproval. Impressed as I am with the mischiefs with which that decision is believed to be fraught, trampling down, as to me it seems to do, some of the strongest defences of the safety and independence of the States of this confederacy, it would be worse than a fault in me could I contemplate the invasion in silence. I am unable to suppress my alarm at the approach of power claimed to be uncontrollable and unlimited. ”

“ Can the Supreme Court of Massachusetts say that its legislature may impose a tax of two dollars upon each alien passenger, but cannot increase it to five? Can the court inquire into the condition of the treasury, count foreign paupers, ascertain the extent of their wants, and so determine whether the tax was designed for constitutional purposes or not? Is there any limit in the power of a State to tax the property of its own citizens in any way and to any extent it may see fit? ”

“ The Constitution requires that all 'duties and imposts shall be uniform,' and declares that 'no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another.' Now, it is inexplicable to me how thirteen or more independent States could tax imports under these provisions of the Constitution. The tax must be uniform throughout the Union; consequently the exercise of the power by any one State would be unconstitutional, as it would destroy the uniformity of the tax. ”

“ Those who come to New York, oftentimes without touching at the city, ascend the Hudson, and continue their progress without ceasing, until they reach the great prairies of the West. Yet each and all of these countless thousands leave a portion of their property, destined for their own use in other States, in the treasuries of these two ocean powers, and for the benefit of persons other than themselves. ”

“ The sovereignty of a State in the exercise of its legislation is not to be impaired, unless it be clear that it has transcended its legitimate authority; nor ought any power to be sought, much less to be adjudged, in favor of the United States, unless it be clearly within the reach of its constitutional charter. Sitting here, we are not at liberty to add one jot of power to the national government beyond what the people have granted by the Constitution ”

“ Nothing can be given to the United States by construction, which is not taken from the States. The terms of the prohibition are plain. No State shall lay a duty on imports or tonnage. Is this a denial of right to tax men or any other thing? Is any thing reserved exclusively to the United States except imports and tonnage? And if not, how can a State be denied the right to its sources of revenue to the fullest extent? ”

“ Can we protect ourselves as we do against the dangers of gunpowder and explosive articles, which put in peril life and property? We lay the burden of protective measures upon those who bring in such merchandise or such diseases.
What can a State do to avert or prevent, after the paupers and vagabonds are landed and mixed with the population? Such an exercise of the power conceded to us would be barren and useless. We must meet it on shipboard, as we do disease and dangerous merchandise. There we can put our hands upon the lunatics, idiots, aged and infirm paupers, &c. ”

“ If in ordinary cases between man and man it is important that the law should be settled, it seems to me that it is infinitely more important to the community that the construction of the Constitution should be settled. It is all-important to every citizen of the United States that he should know what his constitutional rights and duties are. This, in many cases, can only be learned by the decisions of this court. ”

“ The only material derangement would be in the foreign trade and commerce. It is manifest that our strength, and the durability of our system, lie in the federative principle,-in the organization of States, whose powers embrace every thing except a very few national objects. The limitation of this government to such objects alone gives to it its strength and usefulness, and the most unwise, if not the most fatal, course it can take will be to arrogate to itself the power of the States, by taking from them what they have been accustomed to enjoy through the whole Federal history. ”

“ It is the cherished policy of the general government to encourage and invite Christian foreigners of our own race to seek an asylum within our borders, and to convert these waste lands into productive farms, and thus add to the wealth, population, and power of the nation. Is it possible that the framers of our Constitution have committed such an oversight, as to leave it to the discretion of some two or three States to thwart the policy of the Union, and dictate the terms upon which foreigners shall be permitted to gain access to the other States? ”

“ That is, if they endanger the health of the body, the power over them is not exclusive in Congress, but if they endanger only the police of the State, its pauper securities, and its economy, morals, and public peace, the power is exclusive in Congress, and goes to strip the State of all authority to resist the introduction of either convicts, slaves, paupers, or refugees. If these last only come in the tracks of commerce in vessels from abroad, and are enrolled as passengers, the States cannot touch them, but may seize on them at once if their bodies are diseased. ”

“ Laws of the United States, in order to be binding, must be within the legitimate powers vested by the Constitution. Treaties, in order to be valid, must be made within the scope of the same powers; for there can be no authority of the United States, save what is derived mediately or immediately, and regularly and legitimately, from the Constitution. A treaty no more than an ordinary statute can arbitrarily cede away any one right of a State, or of any citizen of a State.' (5 Howard, 613.) ”

“ Is our right doubted and denied? Then I ask those who concede the power to enforce penalties for a violation of non-intercourse laws in regard to slavery, and the right to raise revenue when sales are made of slaves from one State in another, on what ground these laws can be sustained. If the law of Massachusetts comes within the wide grasp of the commercial power of the United States, which goes, not only to foreign, but to commerce between the States, how are such laws to escape? ”

“ If it be the true meaning of the Constitution, that a State can evade them by declaring that the master may be taxed in regard to passengers, on the mere assertion that he shall have a remedy over against the passengers, citizens and aliens, and that the State may assess the amount of tax at discretion, then the old evil will be revived, as the States may tax at every town and village where a vessel of any kind lands. They may tax on the assumption of self-defence, or on any other assumption, and raise a revenue from others, and thereby exempt their own inhabitants from taxation. ”

“ The question, whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case. It is not on slight implication and vague conjecture, that a legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such, that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other. ”

“ I contend, then, both upon principle and upon authority, that the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations is vested in Congress exclusively; that the States have no power to interfere with it; that commerce means intercourse, and that passengers are as much a part of that commerce and intercourse as goods or merchandise; that no State has the power of making any regulations upon the subject, and most assuredly not of laying and collecting an import duty upon passengers imported or brought into the United States. ”

“ For the silence of Congress, which some seem to regard as more formidable than its action, is, whether in full or in part, to be respected and obeyed only where its power is exclusive, and the States are deprived of all authority over the matter. The power must first be shown to be exclusive before any inference can be drawn that the silence of Congress speaks, and a different course of reasoning begs the question attempted to be proved. ”

“ It is no more a regulation of commerce, and, indeed, is far less burdensome and occasions less interruption to commerce, than the ancient quarantine regulations. And I cannot see upon what ground it can be supposed that the Constitution of the United States permits a State to use the ancient means of guarding the health of its citizens, and at the same time denies to it the power of mitigating its hardships and of adapting its sanatory regulation to the extended and incessant intercourse with foreign nations, and the more enlightened philanthropy of modern times ”

“ A course of harshness towards the States by the general government, or by any of its great departments,-a course of prohibitions and nullifications as to their domestic policies in doubtful cases, and this by mere implied power,-is a violation of sound principle, will alienate and justly offend, and tend ultimately, no less than disastrously, to dissolve the bands of that Union so useful and glorious to all concerned. ”

“ It would be a truer illustration to suppose a citizen or an alien,-no matter whom, the President of the United States or the humblest individual that ever entered the harbour,-any person capable of being the vehicle of infectious disease,-to approach our city, bringing infection, bearing death to thousands,-an approach more dreadful than that of an invading army. ”

“ Thus stood the law at the end of nearly two hundred years from the first legislation now on record, by which it appears that the Colony, Province, and State had in succession asserted an unlimited power over paupers and pauperism. They asserted, not only the right to compel the body politic to provide for the poor, but they made the relatives within certain degrees contribute, if able; they bound out poor children, expelled from their territory paupers which belonged elsewhere, denied to such the right to come in, and also shut out convicts, felons, and infamous persons. ”

“ All commercial action within the limits of a State, and which does not extend to any other State or foreign country, is exclusively under State regulation. Congress have no more power to control this than a State has to regulate commerce 'with foreign nations and among the several States.' And yet Congress may tax the property within a State, of every description, owned by its citizens, on the basis provided in the Constitution, the same as a State may tax it. ”

“ Or, more properly speaking, the regulation of commerce is one of those particular rights collectively placed in the hands of the sovereign for the good of the State. Until it is shown that the police power in one of its particulars is not what it has just been said to be, the discretion of a State of this Union to determine what persons may come to and reside in it, and what persons may be removed from it, remains unproved. It cannot be proved, and the laws of Massachusetts and New York derive no support from police power in favor of their constitutionality. ”

“ Coming by land or sea to be sold, slaves are equally articles of commerce, and thus bringing them in is an 'importation or migration of persons'; and if the power over that is now exclusive in Congress, more than half the States in the Union have violated it. If a State can do this as to slaves from abroad or a contiguous State, why not, as has often been the case, do it in respect to any other person deemed dangerous or hostile to the stability and prosperity of her institutions? ”

“ It is a just and well-settled doctrine established by this court, that a State cannot do that indirectly which she is forbidden by the Constitution to do directly. If she cannot levy a duty or tax from the master or owner of a vessel engaged in commerce graduated on the tonnage or admeasurement of the vessel, she cannot effect the same purpose by merely changing the ratio, and graduating it on the number of masts, or of mariners, the size and power of the steam-engine, or the number of passengers which she carries. We have to deal with things, and we cannot change them by changing their names. ”

“ This right of the States has its foundation in the sacred law of self-defence, which no power granted to Congress can restrain or annul. It is admitted by all, that those powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what may be more properly called internal police, are not surrendered or restrained; and that it is as competent and necessary for a State to provide precautionary measures against the moral pestilence of paupers, vagabonds, and convicts, as it is to guard against the physical pestilence which may arise from unsound and infectious articles imported. ”

“ The pauper gives security; those who are above his condition pay a tax,-not for themselves, but for others.
The law of Massachusetts discriminates, taxing aliens alone. If it may do this, it may discriminate among nations. Treaties would have nothing to do with the subject, for the States cannot make them; nor could Congress restrain them, if the power in question is a mere police regulation or sanatory measure. Congress cannot regulate or restrain the States in matters of police and health, as each State has unlimited power over these subjects, to be exercised according to its own discretion. ”

“ And when Congress shall legislate,-if it be not disrespectful for one who is a member of the judiciary to suppose so absurd a thing of another department of the government,-to make paupers, vagabonds, suspected persons, and fugitives from justice subjects of admission into the United States, I do not doubt it will be found and declared, should it ever become a matter for judicial decision, that such persons are not within the regulating power which the United States have over commerce. ”

“ Congress has said that the personal effects, not merchandise, of aliens shall be admitted exempt from duties. It has nowhere taxed their persons, but has permitted them, so far as their legislation is concerned, to come in free of charge. If the States cannot tax the personal effects, not merchandise, of aliens because Congress has permitted them to be free, how can they tax their persons, which, by clear implication, are to be free also? ”

“ The nature of our institutions under the Federal government made it a matter of absolute necessity that this power should be confided to the government of the Union, where all the States were represented, and where all had a voice; a necessity so obvious that no statesman could have overlooked it. The article has nothing to do with the admission or rejection of aliens, nor with immigration, but with the rights of citizenship. Its sole object was to prevent one State from forcing upon all the others, and upon the general government, persons as citizens whom they were unwilling to admit as such. ”

“ If the State legislatures have the power to impose a tax upon passengers, the amount of that tax must be fixed at such a rate as the different legislatures in their wisdom may think proper to fix it at. Hence the court will perceive that the tax upon a passenger arriving in the United States may differ, and in all probability will differ, in amount in each State having a seaport, and thus destroy that uniformity of taxation upon persons arriving here which nothing but an act of Congress can establish, and which the interest of the country requires. ”

“ If Congress, without a co ordinate or concurrent power in the States, can prohibit other persons as well as slaves from coming into States, they can of course allow it, and hence can permit and demand the admission of slaves, as well as any kind of free person, convicts or paupers, into any State, and enforce the demand by all the overwhelming powers of the Union, however obnoxious to the habits and wishes of the people of a particular State. ”