Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/276/394/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:51:30+00:00

Document:
J. W. HAMPTON, Jr., & CO. v. UNITED STATES.
Mr. Walter E. Hampton, of New York City, for petitioner.
The Attorney General and Mr. W. D. Mitchell, Sol. Gen., of Washington, D. C., for the United States.
'(c) That in ascertaining the differences in costs of production, under the provisions of subsidivisions (a) and (b) of this section, the President, in so far as he finds it practicable, shall take into consideration (1) the differences in conditions in production, including wages, costs of material, and other items in costs of production of such or similar articles in the United States and in competing foreign countries; (2) the differences in the wholesale selling prices of domestic and foreign articles in the principal markets of the United States; (3) advantages granted to a foreign producer by a foreign government, or by a person, partnership, corporation, or association in a foreign country; and (4) any other advantages or disadvantages in competition.
'Investigations to assist the President in ascertaining differences in costs of production under this section shall be made by the United States Tariff Commission, and no proclamation shall be issued under this section until such investigation shall have been made. The commission shall give reasonable public notice of its hearings and shall give reasonable opportunity to parties interested to be present, to produce evidence, and to be heard. The commission is authorized to adopt such reasonable procedure, rules, and regulations as it may deem necessary.
'And whereas the President upon said investigation * * * has thereby found that the said principal competing country is Germany and that the duty fixed in said title and act does not equalize the differences in costs of production in the United States and in * * * Germany, and has ascertained and determined the increased rate of duty necessary to equalize the same.
"An increase in said duty on barium dioxide (within the limit of total increase provided for in said act) from 4 cents per pound to 6 cents per pound.
"In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
"Done at the city of Washington this nineteenth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-eighth.
"By the President: Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State."
The issue here is as to the constitutionality of section 315, upon which depends the authority for the proclamation of the President and for two of the six cents per pound duty collected from the petitioner. The contention of the taxpayers is twofold-first, they argue that the section is invalid in that it is a delegation to the President of the legislative power, which by article 1, § 1 of the Constitution, is vested in Congress, the power being that declared in section 8 of article 1, that the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises. Their second objection is that, as section 315 was enacted with the avowed intent and for the purpose of protecting the industries of the United States, it is invalid because the Constitution gives power to lay such taxes only for revenue.
First. It seems clear what Congress intended by section 315. Its plan was to secure by law the imposition of customs duties on articles of imported merchandise which should equal the difference between the cost of producing in a foreign country the articles in question and laying them down for sale in the United States, and the cost of producing and selling like or similar articles in the United States, so that the duties not only secure revenue, but at the same time enable domestic producers to compete on terms of equality with foreign producers in the markets of the United States. It may be that it is difficult to fix with exactness this difference, but the difference which is sought in the statute is perfectly clear and perfectly intelligible. Because of the difficulty in practically determining what that difference is, Congress seems to have doubted that the information in its possession was such as to enable it to make the adjustment accurately, and also to have apprehended that with changing conditions the difference might vary in such a way that some readjustments would be necessary to give effect to the principle on which the statute proceeds. To avoid such difficulties, Congress adopted in section 315 the method of describing with clearness what its policy and plan was and then authorizing a member of the executive branch to carry out its policy and plan and to find the changing difference from time to time and to make the adjustments necessary to conform the duties to the standard underlying that policy and plan. As it was a matter of great importance, it concluded to give by statute to the President, the chief of the executive branch, the function of determining the difference as it might vary. He was provided with a body of investigators who were to assist him in obtaining needed data and asscertaining the facts justifying readjustments. There was no specific provision by which action by the President might be invoked under this act, but it was presumed that the President would through this body of advisers keep himself advised of the necessity for investigation or change, and then would proceed to pursue his duties under the act and reach such conclusion as he might find justified by the investigation and proclaim the same, if necessary.
The Tariff Commission does not itself fix duties, but, before the President reaches a conclusion on the subject of investigation, the Tariff Commission must make an investigation, and in doing so must give notice to all parties interested and an opportunity to adduce evidence and to be heard.
The well-known maxim 'Delegata potestas non potest delegari,' applicable to the law of agency in the general and common law, is well understood and has had wider application in the construction of our federal and state Constitutions than it has in private law. Our Federal Constitution and state Constitutions of this country divide the governmental power into three branches. The first is the legislative, the second is the executive, and the third is the judicial, and the rule is that in the actual administration of the government Congress or the Legislature should exercise the legislative power, the President or the state executive, the Governor, the executive power, and the courts or the judiciary the judicial power, and in carrying out that constitutional division into three branches it is a breach of the national fundamental law if Congress gives up its legislative power and transfers it to the President, or to the judicial branch, or if by law it attempts to invest itself or its members with either executive power or judicial power. This is not to say that the three branches are not co-ordinate parts of one government and that each in the field of its duties may not invoke the action of the two other branches in so far as the action invoked shall not be an assumption of the constitutional field of action of another branch. In determining what it may do in seeking assistance from another branch, the extent and character of that assistence must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the governmental co-ordination.
The field of Congress involves all and many varieties of legislative action, and Congress has found it frequently necessary to use officers of the executive branch within defined limits, to secure the exact effect intended by its acts of legislation, by vesting discretion in such officers to make public regulations interpreting a statute and directing the details of its execution, even to the extent of providing for penalizing a breach of such regulations. United States v. Grimaud, 220 U. S. 506, 518, 31 S. Ct. 480, 55 L. Ed. 563; Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U. S. 364, 27 S. Ct. 367, 51 L. Ed. 523; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470, 24 S. Ct. 349, 48 L. Ed. 525; In re Kollock, 165 U. S. 526, 17 S. Ct. 444, 41 L. Ed. 813; Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320, 29 S. Ct. 671, 53 L. Ed. 1013.
See, also, Moers v. Reading, 21 Pa. 188, 202; Locke's Appeal, 72 Pa. 491, 498, 13 Am. Rep. 716.
See, also, the language of Justices Miller and Bradley in the same case in this Court. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Minnesota ex rel. Railroad & W. Commission, 134 U. S. 418, 459, 461, 464, 10 S. Ct. 462, 702, 33 L. Ed. 970.
Then followed certain rates of duty to be imposed. It was contended that this section delegated to the President both legislative and treaty-making powers and was unconstitutional. After an examination of all the authorities, the Court said that, while Congress could not delegate legislative power to the President, this act did not in any real sense invest the President with the power of legislation, because nothing involving the expendiency or just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President; that the legislative power was exercised when Congress declared that the suspension should take effect upon a named contingency. What the President was required to do was merely in execution of the act of Congress. It was not the making of law. He was the mere agent of the lawmaking department to ascertain and declare the event upon which its expressed will was to take effect.
In this first Congress sat many members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. This Court has repeatedly laid down the principle that a contemporaneous legislative exposition of the Constitution when the founders of our government and framers of our Constitution were actively participating in public affairs long acquiesced in fixes the construction to be given its provisions. Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 175, 47 S. Ct. 21, 71 L. Ed. 160, and cases cited. The enactment and enforcement of a number of customs revenue laws drawn with a motive of maintaining a system of protection since the revenue law of 1789 are matters of history.
More than a hundred years later, the titles of the Tariff Acts of 1897 ( 30 Stat. 151) and 1909 ( 36 Stat. 11) declared the purpose of those acts, among other things, to be that of encouraging the industries of the United States. The title of the Tariff Act of 1922 ( 42 Stat. 858), of which section 315 is a part, is 'An act to provide revenue, to regulate commerce with foreign countries, to encourage the industries of the United States, and for other purposes.' Whatever we may think of the wisdom of a protection policy, we cannot hold it unconstitutional.
'Texes are occasionally imposed in the discretion of the Legislature on proper subjects with the primary motive of obtaining revenue from them and with the incidental motive of discouraging them by making their continuance onerous. They do not lose their character as taxes because of the incidental motive.' And so here the fact that Congress declares that one of its motives in fixing the rates of duty is so to fix them that they shall encourage the industries of this country in the competition with producers in other countries in the sale of goods in this country cannot invalidate a revenue act so framed. Section 315 and its provisions are within the power of Congress.
The judgment of the Court of Customs Appeals is affirmed.

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