The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Part 25

Concurrent Federal and State Legislation

THE GENERAL ISSUE

Since the turn of the century federal legislation under the commerce clause has penetrated more and more deeply into areas once occupied exclusively by the police power of the States. The result has been that State laws have come under increasingly frequent attack as being incompatible with acts of Congress operating in the same general field.

The Court's decisions resolving such alleged conflicts fall into three groups: _first_, those which follow Webster's theory, advanced in Gibbons _v._ Ogden, that when Congress acts upon a particular phase of interstate commerce, it designs to appropriate the entire field with the result that no room is left for supplementary State action; _second_, those in which, in the absence of conflict between specific provisions of the State and Congressional measures involved, the opposite result is reached; _third_, those in which the State legislation involved is found to conflict with certain acts of Congress, and in which the principle of national supremacy is invoked by the Court. Most of the earlier cases stemming from State legislation affecting interstate railway transportation fall in the first cla.s.s; while ill.u.s.trations of the second category usually comprise legislation intended to promote the public health and fair dealing. More recent cases are more difficult to cla.s.sify, especially as between the first and third categories.

THE HEPBURN ACT

No act ever pa.s.sed by Congress was more destructive of legislation on the State statute books than the Hepburn Act of 1906,[977] amending the Interstate Commerce Act. Thus a State statute which, while prohibiting a railway from giving free pa.s.ses or free transportation, authorized the issuance of transportation in payment for printing and advertising, was found to conflict with the unqualified prohibition by Congress of free interstate transportation.[978] Likewise, a State statute which penalized a carrier for refusing to receive freight for transportation whenever tendered at a regular station was found to conflict with the Congressional provision that no carrier "shall engage or partic.i.p.ate in the transportation of pa.s.sengers or property, as defined in this act, unless the rates, fares, and charges upon which the same are transported by said carrier have been filed and published in accordance with the provisions of this act."[979] In enacting this provision, the Court found, Congress had intended to occupy the entire field. In a third case, it was held that the Hepburn Act had put it outside the power of a State to regulate the delivery of cars for interstate shipments;[980]

and on the same ground, a State statute authorizing recovery of a penalty for delay in giving notice of the arrival of freight was disallowed;[981] as was also the similar rule of a State railroad commission with respect to failure to deliver freight at depots and warehouses within a stated time limit.[982] And in Adams Express Co.

_v._ Croninger[983] it was sweepingly ruled that the so-called Carmack Amendment to the Hepburn Act, which puts the responsibility for loss of, or injury to, cargo upon the initial carrier, had superseded all State statutes limiting recovery for loss or injury to goods in transportation to an agreed or declared value. Substantially contemporaneous with these holdings were others in which the Court ruled that the federal Employers' Liability Act of 1908, as amended in 1910;[984] the federal Hours of Service Act (Railroads) of 1907;[985] and the federal Safety Appliance Acts of 1893, as amended in 1903[986] superseded all State legislation dealing with the same subjects so far as such legislation affected interstate commerce.[987] However, the States were still able to regulate the time and manner of payment of the employees of railroads, including those engaged in interstate commerce,[988] Congress having not legislated on the subject.

QUARANTINE CASES

In 1904 it was held that a New York statute prohibiting the manufacture or sale of any adulterated food or drug, or the coloring or coating of food whereby it is made to appear better than it really is, was not, as applied to imported coffee, repugnant to either the commerce clause or the Meat Inspection Act of 1890,[989] prohibiting the importation into the United States of adulterated and unwholesome food, but as exertion by the State of power to legislate for the protection of the health and safety of the community and to provide against deception and fraud.[990]

And in 1912 it was held that an Indiana statute regulating the sale of concentrated commercial feeding stuff and requiring the disclosure of ingredients by certificate and label, and providing for inspection and a.n.a.lysis, was not in conflict with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906.[991] However, when Wisconsin about the same time pa.s.sed an act requiring that when certain commodities were offered for sale in that State they should bear the label required by State law and no other, she was informed that she could not validly apply it to articles which had been labeled in accordance with the federal statute nor did it make any difference that the goods in question had been removed from the container in which they had been shipped into the State, inasmuch as they could still be proceeded against under the act of Congress.[992]

The original package doctrine, it was added, "was not intended to limit the right of Congress, * * *, to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from the carriage of injurious or fraudulently branded articles and to choose appropriate means to that end."[993] But a North Dakota statute requiring that lard compound or subst.i.tutes, unless sold in bulk, should be put up in pails or containers holding one, three, or five pounds net weight, or some multiple of these numbers, was held not to be repugnant to the Pure Food and Drugs Act.[994] On the other hand, a decade later the Court found that the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912, as amended in 1917,[995] had so completely occupied the field indicated by its t.i.tle that a State was left without power to prevent the importation of plants infected by a particular disease to which the Secretary of Agriculture's regulations did not apply.[996] Congress promptly intervened by further amending the federal statute to permit the States to impose quarantines in such overlooked cases.[997]

RECENT CASES SUSTAINING STATE LEGISLATION

In 1935, it was held[998] that an order of the New York Commissioner of Agriculture prohibiting the importation of cattle for dairy or breeding purposes unless such cattle and the herds from which they come had been certified by the chief sanitary officer of the State of origin as being free from Bang's disease, was not in conflict with the Cattle Contagious Diseases Acts.[999] In 1937, it was ruled[1000] that a Georgia statute fixing maximum charges for handling and selling leaf tobacco did not, as applied to sales of tobacco destined for export, conflict with the Tobacco Inspection Act.[1001] In 1942,[1002] it was held that an order of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board which commanded a union, its agents, and members, to desist from ma.s.s picketing of a factory, threatening personal injury or property damage to employees desiring to work, obstructing the streets about the factory, and picketing the homes of employees, was not in conflict with the National Labor Relations Act,[1003] to which the employer was admittedly subject but which had not been invoked. An "intention of Congress," said the Court, "to exclude States from exerting their police power must be clearly manifested."[1004] In 1943,[1005] the Court sustained the marketing program for the 1940 California raisin crop, adopted pursuant to the California Agricultural Prorate Act. Although it was conceded that the program and act operated to eliminate compet.i.tion among producers concerning terms of sale and price as to product destined for the interstate market, they were held not to conflict with the commerce clause or with the Sherman Act or the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act.[1006] To the contrary, said Chief Justice Stone, speaking for the unanimous court, the program "is one which it has been the policy of Congress to aid and encourage through federal agencies" under federal act.[1007] The case was not one, he further observed, which was to be resolved by "mechanical test," but with the object in view of accommodating "the competing demands of the State and national interests involved."[1008] In 1944,[1009] the Court upheld the right of Minnesota to exclude from its courts a firm licensed by the National Government to carry on the business of customs broker because of its failure to comply with a State statute requiring foreign corporations to obtain a license to do business in the State. Speaking for the Court, Justice Frankfurter, again disparaged "the generalities" to which certain cases had given utterance. Actually, he a.s.serted, "the fate of State legislation in these cases has not been determined by these generalities but by the weight of the circ.u.mstances and the practical and experienced judgment in applying these generalities to the particular instances."[1010] In cases, decided in 1947,[1011] the Court ruled that Indiana had not violated the Natural Gas Act[1012] by attempting to regulate the rates for natural gas sold within the State by an interstate pipe line company to local industrial consumers; and that Illinois was not precluded by the Commodity Exchange Act[1013] from imposing upon grain exchanges doing business within her borders regulations not at variance with the provisions of the act or with regulations promulgated under it by the Secretary of Agriculture. Nor, it was held by a bare majority of the Court in 1949, did the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, as amended in 1942,[1014] prevent California from prohibiting the sale or arrangement of any transportation over its public highways if the transporting carrier has no permit from the Interstate Commerce Commission.[1015] The opposed opinions line up most of the cases on either side of the question.

RECENT CASES NULLIFYING STATE ACTION

On the other side of the ledger appear the following cases, decided contemporaneously with those just reviewed: one in 1942 in which it was held that a gas company engaged in the business of piping natural gas from without the State of Illinois and selling it wholesale to distributors in that State was subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission under the Natural Gas Act,[1016] and hence could not be required by the Illinois Commerce Commission to extend its facilities in the absence of a certificate of convenience from the Federal Power Commission;[1017] one, in the same year, in which it was held, by a sharply divided Court, that federal regulation of the production of renovated b.u.t.ter under the Internal Revenue Code[1018]

prevented the State of Alabama from inspecting, seizing and detaining stock b.u.t.ter from which such b.u.t.ter was made, some of it being intended for interstate commerce;[1019] one in 1947 holding that the United States Warehouse Act, as amended,[1020] must be construed as superseding State authority to regulate licenses thereunder, and hence overruled the stricter requirements of Illinois law dealing with such subject as rate discrimination, the dual position of grain warehous.e.m.e.n storing their own grain, the mixing of inferior grain owned by the warehous.e.m.e.n with superior grain of other users of the facility, delay in loading grain, the sacrificing or rebating of storage charges, retraining desirable transit tonnage, utilizing preferred storage s.p.a.ce, maintenance of unsafe and inadequate grain elevators, inadequate and ineffectual warehouse service, the obtaining of a license, the abandonment of warehousing service, and the rendition of warehousing service without filing and publishing rate schedules;[1021] one decided the same year in which it was held that the authority of the Federal Power Commission under the Natural Gas Act[1022] extended to and superseded State regulatory power over sales made within a State by a natural gas producing company to pipe line companies which transported the purchased gas to markets in other States;[1023] one in 1948, in which a sharply divided Court held that Michigan law governing the rights of dissenting stockholders could not be applied to embarra.s.s a merger agreement between two railroad companies which had been approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Interstate Commerce Act[1024] as "just and reasonable";[1025] and finally one decided the same year in which it was held by a unanimous Court that the Interstate Commerce Commission may, in approving the acquisition by a railroad corporation of one State of railroad lines in another, relieve such corporation from being incorporated under the laws of the latter State.[1026]

FEDERAL VERSUS STATE LABOR LAWS

One group of cases, which has caused the Court some difficulty and its att.i.tude in which has perhaps shifted in some measure, deals with the question of the effect of the Wagner, and, latterly, of the Taft-Hartley Act on State power to govern labor union activities. In a case decided in 1945[1027] it was held that a Florida statute which required business agents of a union operating in the State to file annual reports and pay an annual fee of one dollar conflicted with the Wagner Act,[1028]

standing, as the Court put it, "'as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.'"[1029]

In two cases decided in 1949, however, State legislation regulative of labor relations was sustained. In one a "cease and desist" order of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board[1030] implementing the State Employment Peace Act, which made it an unfair labor practice for an employee to interfere with production except by leaving the premises in an orderly manner for the purpose of going on strike, was found not to conflict with either the Wagner or the Taft-Hartley Act,[1031] both of which, the Court a.s.serted, designedly left open an area for State control. In the other,[1032] the Wisconsin board, acting under the same statute, was held to be within its powers in labelling as "an unfair labor practice" the discharge by an employer of an employee under a maintenance of membership clause which had been inserted in the contract of employment in 1943 under pressure from the National War Labor Board, but which was contrary to provisions of the Wisconsin Act. On the other hand, in 1950, the Court invalidated a Michigan mediation statute, and in 1951, a Wisconsin Public Utility Anti-Strike Act, on the ground that these matters were governed by the policies embodied in the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts.[1033]

Commerce With Indian Tribes

UNITED STATES _v._ KAGAMA

Congress is given power to regulate commerce "with the Indian tribes."

Faced in 1886 with a Congressional enactment which prescribed a system of criminal laws for Indians living on their reservations, the Court rejected the government's argument which sought to base the act on the commerce clause. It sustained the act, however, on the following grounds: "From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal Government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized by the Executive and by Congress, and by this Court, whenever the question has arisen. * * * The power of the General Government over these remnants of a race once powerful, now weak and diminished in numbers, is necessary to their protection, as well as to the safety of those among whom they dwell. It must exist in that government, because it never has existed anywhere else, because the theatre of its exercise is within the geographical limits of the United States, because it has never been denied, and because it alone can enforce its laws on all the tribes." Moreover, such power was operative within the States.[1034]

Obviously, this line of reasoning renders the commerce clause superfluous as a source of power over the Indian tribes; and some years earlier, in 1871, Congress had forbidden the further making of treaties with them.[1035] However, by a characteristic judicial device the effort has been made at times to absorb the doctrine of the Kagama case into the commerce clause,[1036] although more commonly the Court, in sustaining Congressional legislation, prefers to treat the commerce clause and "the recognized relations of tribal Indians," as joint sources of Congress's power.[1037] Most of the cases have arisen, in fact, in connection with efforts by Congress to ban the traffic in "fire water" with tribal Indians. In this connection it has been held that even though an Indian has become a citizen, yet so long as he remains a member of his tribe, under the charge of an Indian agent, and so long as the United States holds in trust the t.i.tle to land which has been allotted him, Congress can forbid the sale of intoxicants to him.[1038]

Also Congress can prohibit the introduction of intoxicating liquors into land occupied by a tribe of uncivilized Indians within territory admitted to statehood.[1039] Nor can a State withdraw Indians within its borders from the operation of acts of Congress regulating trade with them by conferring on them rights of citizenship and suffrage, whether by its const.i.tution or its statutes.[1040] And when a State is admitted into the Union Congress may, in the enabling act, reserve authority to legislate in the future respecting the Indians residing within the new State, and may declare that existing acts of Congress relating to traffic and intercourse with them shall remain in force.[1041]

Clause 4. _The Congress shall have Power_ * * * To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.

Naturalization and Citizenship

CATEGORIES OF NATURALIZED PERSONS

Naturalization has been defined by the Supreme Court as "the act of adopting a foreigner, and clothing him with the privileges of a native citizen, * * *"[1042] In the Dred Scott Case,[1043] the Court a.s.serted that the power of Congress under this clause applies only to "persons born in a foreign country, under a foreign government."[1044] These dicta are much too narrow to sustain the power which Congress has actually exercised on the subject. The competence of Congress in this field merges, in fact, with its indefinite, inherent powers in the field of foreign relations. In the words of the Court: "As a government, the United States is invested with all the attributes of sovereignty. As it has the character of nationality it has the powers of nationality, especially those which concern its relations and intercourse with other countries."[1045] By the Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952,[1046] which codifies much previous legislation, it is enacted that the following shall be citizens of the United States at birth:

"(1) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

"(2) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: _Provided_, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;

"(3) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;

"(4) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;

"(5) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;

"(6) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;

"(7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: _Provided_, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph."[1047] By the same act, "persons born in the Ca.n.a.l Zone and Panama after February 26, 1904, one or both of whose parents were at the time of birth of such person citizens of the United States, are declared to be citizens of the United States; as likewise are of certain categories of persons born in Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands and Guam on or after certain stated dates."[1048]

WHO ARE ELIGIBLE FOR NATURALIZATION

Naturalization is a privilege to be given, qualified, or withheld as Congress may determine, which an alien may claim only upon compliance with the terms which Congress imposes. Earlier the privilege was confined to white persons and persons of African descent, but was extended by the Act of December 17, 1943, to descendants of races indigenous to the Western Hemisphere and Chinese persons or persons of Chinese descent;[1049] and by the Act of June 27, 1952, "the rights of a person to become a naturalized citizen of the United States shall not be denied or abridged because of race or s.e.x or because the person is married."[1050] But, any person "who advocates or teaches or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches * * *" opposition to all organized government, or "who advocates or teaches or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches the overthrow by force or violence or other unconst.i.tutional means of the Government of the United States" may not be naturalized as a citizen of the United States.[1051] These restrictive provisions are, moreover, "applicable to any applicant for naturalization who at any time within a period of ten years immediately preceding the filing of the pet.i.tion for naturalization or after such filing and before taking the final oath of citizenship is, or has been found to be within any of the cla.s.ses enumerated within this section, notwithstanding that at the time the pet.i.tion is filed he may not be included within such cla.s.ses."[1052]

THE PROCEDURE OF NATURALIZATION

This involves as its princ.i.p.al and culminating event the taking in open court by the applicant of an oath: "(1) to support the Const.i.tution of the United States; (2) to renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the pet.i.tioner was before a subject or citizen; (3) to support and defend the Const.i.tution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; (4) to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and (5)(A) to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law, or (B) to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law, or (C) to perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law."[1053] Any naturalized person who takes this oath with mental reservations or conceals beliefs and affiliations which under the statute disqualify one for naturalization, is subject, upon these facts being shown in a proceeding brought for the purpose, to have his certificate of naturalization cancelled.[1054]

Furthermore, if a naturalized person shall within five years "following his naturalization become a member of or affiliated with any organization, membership in or affiliation with which at the time of naturalization would have precluded such person from naturalization under the provisions of section 313, it shall be considered prima facie evidence that such person was not attached to the principles of the Const.i.tution of the United States and was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States at the time of naturalization, and, in the absence of countervailing evidence, it shall be sufficient in the proper proceeding to authorize the revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and the cancellation of the certificate of naturalization as having been obtained by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. * * *"

[1055]

RIGHTS OF NATURALIZED PERSONS

Chief Justice Marshall early stated the dictum that "a naturalized citizen * * * become[s] a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the Const.i.tution, on the footing of a native. The Const.i.tution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge those rights. The simple power of the national legislature is, to prescribe a uniform rule of naturalization, and the exercise of this power exhausts it, so far as respects the individual."[1056] A similar idea was expressed in 1946 in Knauer _v._ United States:[1057] "Citizenship obtained through naturalization is not a second-cla.s.s citizenship. * * * [It] carries with it the privilege of full partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of our society, including the right to speak freely, to criticize officials and administrators, and to promote changes in our laws including the very Charter of our Government."[1058] But, as shown above, a naturalized citizen is subject at any time to have his good faith in taking the oath of allegiance to the United States inquired into, and to lose his citizenship if lack of such faith is shown in proper proceedings.[1059]

Also, "a person who has become a national by naturalization" may lose his nationality by "having a continuous residence for three years in the territory of a foreign state of which he was formerly a national or in which the place of his birth is situated," or by "having a continuous residence for five years in any other foreign state or states."[1060]

However, in the absence of treaty or statute to the contrary effect, a child born in the United States who is taken during minority to the country of his parents' origin, where his parents resume their former allegiance, does not thereby lose his American citizenship provided that on attaining his majority he elects to retain it and returns to the United States to a.s.sume its duties.[1061]

CONGRESS' POWER EXCLUSIVE