1861. April Term. Baker V. Wise, Governor. yet not to be denied their full force and efficacy in any and second sections of the act, the persons appointed may go on board of a ship from a foreign port which arrives at the port of Boston with alien passengers on board, and examine whether any of them are lunatics, idiots, maimed, aged or infirmed, incompetent to maintain themselves, or have been paupers in any other country, and not permit such person to be put on shore unless security shall be given that they shall not become a city, town, or State charge. This is the exercise of an unquestionable power in the State to protect itself from foreign paupers and other persons who would be a public charge." Mr. Justice Grier, in the course of his opinion in the last mentioned case, at p. 457, remarks: "It must be borne in mind that the controversy in this case is not with regard to the right claimed by the State of Massachusetts, in the second section of the act, to repel from her shores lunatics, idiots, criminals, or paupers, which any foreign country, or even one of her sister States, might endeavor to thrust upon her; nor the right of any State whose domestic security might be endangered by the admission of free negroes, to exclude them from her borders. 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." And Mr. Justice Wayne, at p. 426, says: "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 this government) to make paupers, 1861. April Term. Baker V. Wise, Governer. 1861. April Term. Baker V. Wise, Governor. 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. Paupers, vagabonds and fugitives never have been subjects of rightful national intercourse, or of commercial regulations, except in the transportation of them to distant colonies to get rid of them, or for punishment as convicts. They have no rights of national intercourse; no one has a right to transport them without authority of law from where they are to any other place; and their only rights, where they may be, are such as the law gives to all men who have not altogether forfeited its protection." For a fuller statement of these principles, reference may be made to the opinion of Mr. Justice Barbour in the case of The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Peters R. 139-141, and to the opinions of Mr. Justice Woodbury and Mr. Justice Grier in The License Cases, 5 How. U. S. R. 628-632. In the last mentioned case Mr. Justice Grier concludes his opinion with the following observations: "It has been frequently decided by this court that the powers which relate to merely municipal regulations, or which may be more properly called internal police, are not surrendered by the States, or restrained by the Constitution of the United States; and that consequently in relation to these the authority of a State is complete, unqualified and conclusive. Without attempting to define what are the peculiar subjects or limits of this power, it may safely be affirmed that every law for the restraint and punishment of crime, for the preservation of the public peace, health and morals, must come within the category. As subjects of legislation they are, from their very nature, of primary importance; they lie at the foundation of social existence; they are for the protection of life and liberty, and necessarily compel all laws on subjects of secondary importance, which relate only to property, convenience, or luxury, to recede when they come in conflict or collision; salus populi suprema lex. If the right to control these subjects be complete, unqualified and exclusive' in the State legislatures, no regulations of secondary importance can supersede or restrain their operations on any ground of prerogative or supremacy. The exigencies of the social compact require that such laws be executed above all others. It is for this reason that quarantine laws, which protect the public health, compel mere commercial regulations to submit to their control. They restrain the liberty of the passengers; they operate on the ship, which is the instrument of commerce, and its officers and crew, the agents of navigation; they seize the infected cargo and cast it overboard. The soldier and the sailor, though in the service of the government, are arrested, imprisoned and punished for their offences against society. Paupers and convicts are refused admission into the country. All these things are done, not from any power which the States assume to regulate commerce or to interfere with the regulations of commerce, but because police laws for the preservation of health, prevention of crime, and protection of the public welfare, must of necessity have full and free operation according to the exigency which requires their interference." It is true that there is a conflict between some of these views and portions of the opinion of Chief Justice Taney in the same case, which it would seem proper to notice. In commenting on the case of Gibbons v. Ogden, at p. 582, he observes: "It is admitted by the court, in that case, that a State may, in the execution of its police and health laws, make regulations of commerce, but which Congress may control. It is very clear that so far as these regulations are merely internal, and do not 1861. April Term. Baker V. Wise. Governor. 1861. April Term. Baker V. Wise, Governor. operate on foreign commerce, or commerce among the States, they are altogether independent of the power of the General government, and cannot be controlled by it. The power of control therefrom, which the court speaks of, presupposes that they are regulations of foreign commerce, or commerce among the States. And if a State, with a view to its police or health, may make valid regulations of commerce, which yet fall within the controlling power of the General government, it follows that the State is not absolutely prohibited from making regulations of foreign commerce within its own territorial limits, provided they do not come in conflict with the laws of Congress. It has been said, indeed, that quarantine and health laws are passed by the States, not by virtue of a power to regulate commerce, but by virtue of their police powers, and in order to guard the health and lives of their citizens. This, however, cannot be said of the pilot laws, which are yet admitted to be equally valid. But what are the police powers of a State? They are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty to the extent of its dominions. And whether a State passes a quarantine law, or a law to punish offences, or to establish courts of justice, or requiring certain instruments to be recorded, or to regulate commerce within its own limits, in every case it exercises the same power-that is to say, the power of sovereignty, the power to govern men and things within the limits of its dominion. It is by virtue of this power that it legislates; and its authority to make regulations of commerce is as absolute as its power to pass health laws, except in so far as it has been restricted by the Constitution of the United States. And when the validity of a State law making regulations of commerce is drawn into question in a judicial tribunal, the authority to pass it cannot be made to depend upon the motives that may be supposed to have influenced the |