Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/143/649/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 07:02:57+00:00

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The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill is an official attestation by the two Houses of such bill as one that has passed Congress, and when the bill thus attested receives the approval of the President and is deposited in the Department of State according to law, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress is complete and unimpeachable.
It is not competent to show from the journals of either House of Congress that an act so authenticated, approved and deposited, did not pass in the precise form in which it was signed by the presiding officers of the two Houses and approved by the President.
Congress cannot, under the Constitution, delegate its legislative power to the President.
The authority conferred upon the President by section 3 of the Act of October 1, 1890, to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports, and for other purposes, 26 state, c. 1244, pp. 567, 612, to suspend by proclamation the free introduction of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea and hides when he is satisfied that any country producing such articles imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States which he may deem to be reciprocally unequal or unreasonable, is not open to the objection that it unconstitutionally transfers legislative power to the President (FULLER, C.J., and LAMAR, J., dissenting), but even if it were, it does not follow that other parts of the act imposing duties upon imported articles are inoperative.
The Court does not decide whether the provision in that act respecting bounties upon sugar (schedule E, Sugar, 26 Stat. 583) is or is not constitutional, because it is plain from the act that these bounties do not constitute a part of the system of customs duties imposed by the act, and it is clear that the parts of the act imposing such duties would remain in force even if these bounties were held to be unconstitutionally imposed. Unless it be impossible to avoid it, a general revenue statute should never be declared inoperative in all its parts because a particular part, relating to a distinct subject, may be invalid.
These were suits by importers to obtain a refund of duties claimed to have been illegally exacted on imported merchandise under the Tariff Act approved October 1, 1890, 26 Stat. 567, c. 1244.
Marshall Field & Co. proceeded against John M. Clark, the collector of the port of Chicago, to recover duties paid on woolen dress goods, woolen wearing apparel, and silk embroideries.
Boyd, Sutton & Co. proceeded against the United States and J. B. Erhardt, collector of the port of New York, to recover duties paid upon an importation of silk and cotton laces.
H. Herrman, Sternbach & Co, proceeded against the United States to recover duties paid upon colored cotton cloths.
The main issue in all the cases was whether that act, which purports to repeal the previous Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, 22 Stat. 488, c. 121, had itself the force of law.
The facts which were presented in support of the contention that the bill never became a law in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution were three.
(1) That in engrossing the bill, a clause known as section 30, relating to a rebate of taxes on tobacco, which was shown by the journals of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to have been regularly passed by both Houses of Congress, was omitted, and that the engrossed act, as attested by the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House, as approved by the President and as deposited with the Secretary of State, was not the act which passed the two Houses of Congress, and was therefore not a statute of the United States in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.
(2) That the first five paragraphs of Schedule E, section 1, of the act, providing for bounties to producers of American sugar (paragraphs 231 to 235) were unconstitutional and void, no power to enact legislation of this character having been vested in Congress by the Constitution.
(3) That section 3 of said act was unconstitutional and void in that it delegates to the President the power of laying taxes and duties, which power, by Sections 1 and 8 of Article I of the Constitution, is vested in Congress.
As the Court, in its opinion, post, has set forth these several matters objected to at length, it is sufficient to refer to it for further details.
The judgment in each case of the court below was against the importer. In this Court, the three cases were argued together, but by separate counsel for the appellants in each case, each brief covering the whole case. In order not to go over the same ground three times, the arguments for appellants reported are: In No. 1052 on point (1); in No. 1049 on point (2); and in No. 1050 on point (3), that being the order in which the cases stand in the opinion of the Court.
and cotton laces imported by Boyd, Sutton & Co., and on colored cotton cloths imported by Herman, Sternbach & Co. 26 Stat. 567, c. 1244, § 1.
judgment of the board having been affirmed by the circuit courts of the United States in the respective districts in which these matters arose, the cases have been brought here for review.
The appellants question the validity of the Act of October 1, 1890, upon three grounds, to be separately examined.
"All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if the approve, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house, respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law."
"Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and, before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill."
having been approved by the President or not having been returned by him with his objections, becomes a law or takes effect, it shall forthwith be received by the Secretary of State from the President, and whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote is returned by the President with his objections, and, on being reconsidered, is agreed to be passed, and is approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and thereby becomes a law or takes effect, it shall be received by the Secretary of State from the President of the Senate, or Speaker of the House of Representatives, in whichsoever house it shall last have been so approved, and he shall carefully preserve the originals."
"Approved October 1, 1890 BENJ. HARRISON"
"I certify that this act originated in the House of Representatives."
"a correct copy of every act and joint resolution as soon as possible after its approval by the President or after it has become a law, in accordance with the Constitution, without such approval."
That duty was performed by the Secretary of State with respect to the act in question, and the act appears in the volume of statutes published and distributed under the authority of the United States. Rev.Stat. §§ 210, 3803, 3805, 3807, 3808.
"SEC. 30. That on all original and unbroken factory packages of smoking and manufactured tobacco and snuff, held by manufacturers or dealers at the time the reduction herein provided for shall go into effect, upon which the tax has been paid, there shall be allowed a drawback or rebate of the full amount of the reduction, but the same shall not apply in any case where the claim has not been presented within sixty days following the date of reduction, and such rebate to manufacturers may be paid in stamps at the reduced rate, and no claim shall be allowed or drawback paid for a less amount than five dollars. It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to adopt such rules and regulations, and to prescribe and furnish such blanks and forms, as may be necessary to carry this section into effect. For the payment of the rebates provided for in this section there is hereby appropriated any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated."
The argument, in behalf of the appellants, is that a bill, signed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, presented to and approved by the President of the United States, and delivered by the latter to the Secretary of State, as an act passed by Congress, does not become a law of the United States if it had not in fact been passed by Congress. In view of the express requirements of the Constitution, the correctness of this general principle cannot be doubted. There is no authority in the presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the Senate to attest by their signatures, not in the President to approve, nor in the Secretary of State to receive and cause to be published, as a legislative act, any bill not passed by Congress.
But this concession of the correctness of the general principle for which the appellants contend does not determine the precise question before the Court, for it remains to inquire as to the nature of the evidence upon which a court may act when the issue is made as to whether a bill, originating in the House of Representatives or the Senate, and asserted to have become a law, was or was not passed by Congress. This question is now presented for the first time in this Court. It has received, as its importance required that it should receive, the most deliberate consideration. We recognize, on one hand, the duty of this Court, from the performance of which it may not shrink, to give full effect to the provisions of the Constitution relating to the enactment of laws that are to operate wherever the authority and jurisdiction of the United States extend. On the other hand, we cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must result if this Court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the Constitution, to declare that an enrolled bill, on which depend public and private interests of vast magnitude, and which has been authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and by the approval of the President, and been deposited in the public archives as an act of Congress, was not in fact passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and therefore did not become a law.
"Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, except such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal."
to the proceedings of the legislature and a correspondent responsibility of the members to their respective constituents. And it is founded in sound policy and deep political foresight. Intrigue and cabal are thus deprived of some of their main resources by plotting and devising measures in secrecy. The public mind is enlightened by an attentive examination of the public measures; patriotism and integrity and wisdom obtain their due reward, and votes are ascertained, not by vague conjecture, but by positive facts. . . . So long as known and open responsibility is valuable as a check or an incentive among the representatives of a free people, so long a journal of their proceedings and their votes, published in the face of the world, will continue to enjoy public favor and be demanded by public opinion."
2 Story on the Constitution §§ 840, 841.
In regard to certain matters, the Constitution expressly requires that they shall be entered on the journal. To what extent the validity of legislative action may be affected by the failure to have those matters entered on the journal we need not inquire. No such question is presented for determination. But it is clear that in respect to the particular mode in which, or with what fullness, shall be kept the proceedings of either house relating to matters not expressly required to be entered on the journals; whether bills, orders, resolutions, reports, and amendments shall be entered at large on the journal, or only referred to and designated by their titles or by numbers -- these and like matters were left to the discretion of the respective houses of Congress. Nor does any clause of that instrument either expressly or by necessary implication prescribe the mode in which the fact of the original passage of a bill by the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be authenticated or preclude Congress from adopting any mode to that end which its wisdom suggests. Although the Constitution does not expressly require bills that have passed Congress to be attested by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses, usage, the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings, and the rules under which the two bodies have acted since the organization of the government require that mode of authentication.
The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill is an official attestation by the two houses of such bill as one that has passed Congress. It is a declaration by the two houses, through their presiding officers, to the President that a bill, thus attested, has received, in due form, the sanction of the legislative branch of the government and that it is delivered to him in obedience to the constitutional requirement that all bills which pass Congress shall be presented to him. And when a bill thus attested receives his approval and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable. As the President has no authority to approve a bill not passed by Congress, an enrolled act in the custody of the Secretary of State, and having the official attestations of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, of the President of the Senate, and of the President of the United States carries on its face a solemn assurance by the legislative and executive departments of the government, charged, respectively, with the duty of enacting and executing the laws, that it was passed by Congress. The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept as having passed Congress all bills authenticated in the manner stated, leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the act so authenticated is in conformity with the Constitution.
to be seriously considered in the present inquiry. It suggests a deliberate conspiracy to which the presiding officers, the committees on enrolled bills, and the clerks of the two houses must necessarily be parties, all acting with a common purpose to defeat an expression of the popular will in the mode prescribed by the Constitution. Judicial action based upon such a suggestion is forbidden by the respect due to a coordinate branch of the government. The evils that may result from the recognition of the principle that an enrolled act in the custody of the Secretary of State, attested by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress and the approval of the President, is conclusive evidence that it was passed by Congress according to the forms of the Constitution would be far less than those that would certainly result from a rule making the validity of congressional enactments depend upon the manner in which the journals of the respective houses are kept by the subordinate officers charged with the duty of keeping them.
"Can anyone deny that if the laws of the state are to be tested by a comparison with these journals, so imperfect, so unauthenticated, that the stability of all written law will be shaken to its very foundation? Certainly no person can venture to say that many of our statutes, perhaps some of the oldest and most important, those which affect large classes of persons or on which great interests depend, will not be found defective, even in constitutional particulars, if judged by this criterion. . . . In addition to these considerations, in judging of consequences, we are to remember the danger, under the prevalence of such a doctrine, to be apprehended from the intentional corruption of evidences of this character. It is scarcely too much to say that the legal existence of almost every legisaltive act would be at the mercy of all persons having access to these journals, for it is obvious that any law can be invalidated by the interpolation of a few lines or the obliteration of one name and the substitution of another in its stead. I cannot consent to expose the state legislature to the hazards of such probable error or facile fraud. The doctrine contended for on the part of the evidence has no foundation, in my estimation, on any considerations of public policy."
The conclusion was that, upon grounds of public policy as well as upon the ancient and well settled rules of law, a copy of a bill bearing the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of the legislature and the approval of the governor, and found in the custody of the Secretary of State, was conclusive proof of the enactment and contents of a statute, and could not be contradicted by the legislative journals or in any other mode. These principles were affirmed by the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals in Freeholders of Passaic v. Stevenson, 46 N.J.Law 173, 184, and in Standard Underground Co. v. Attorney General, 46 N.J.Eq. 270, 276.
"Better, far better, that a provision should occasionally find its way into the statute through mistake, or even fraud, than that every act, state and national, should at any and all times, be liable to be put in issue and impeached by the journals, loose papers of the legislature, and parol evidence. Such a state of uncertainty in the statute laws of the land would lead to mischiefs absolutely intolerable. . . . The result of the authorities in England and in the other states clearly is that at common law, whenever a general statute is misrecited, or its existence denied, the question is to tried and determined by the court as a question of law -- that is to say, the court is bound to take notice of it and inform itself the best way it can; that there is no plea by which its existence can be put in issue and tried as a question of fact; that if the enrollment of the statute is in existence, the enrollment itself is the record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is, and cannot be impeached, destroyed, or weakened by the journals of Parliament or any other less authentic or less satisfactory memorials, and that there has been no departure from the principles in the United States except in instances where a departure has been grounded on, or taken in pursuance of, some express constitutional or statutory provision requiring some relaxation of the rule in order that full effect might be given to such provisions, and in such instances the rule has been relaxed by judges with great caution and hesitation, and the departure has never been extended beyond an inspection of the journals of both branches of the legislature."
enrolled bill. County of San Mateo v Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 13 F. 722.
the record contained in the journals, it must perform this task as often as called on, and every court must do it. A justice of the peace must do it, for he has as much right, and is as much bound, to preserve the Constitution and declare and apply the law as any other court, and we will have the spectacle of examination of journals by justices of the peace, and statutes declared to be not law as the result of their journalistic inquiry, and the circuit and chancery courts will be constantly engaged in like manner, and this court, on appeal, have often to try the correctness of the determination of the court below as to the conclusion to be drawn from the legislative journals on the inquiry as to the validity of the statutes thus tested. . . . Let the courts accept as statutes, duly enacted, such bills as are delivered by the legislature as their acts, authenticated as such in the prescribed mode."
"Legislative journals are made amid the confusion of a dispatch of business, and therefore much more likely to contain errors than the certificates of the presiding officers to be untrue. Moreover, public policy requires that the enrolled statures of our state, fair upon their faces, should not be put in question after the public have given faith to their validity. No man should be required to hunt through the journals of a legislature to determine whether a statute, properly certified by the speaker of the house and the president of the senate and approved by the governor, is a statute or not. The enrolled act, if a public law, and the original, if a private act, have always been held in England to be records of the highest order, and, if they carry no 'death wounds' in themselves, to be absolute verity, and of themselves conclusive."
"Were it not for the somewhat peculiar provision of our constitution, which requires that all bills, before they can become laws, shall be read three several times in each house and shall be passed by a vote of a majority of all the members-elect, a bill thus signed an approved would be conclusive of its validity and binding force as a law. . . . According to the theory of our legislation, when a bill has become a law, there must be record evidence of every material requirement, from its introduction until it becomes a law. And this evidence is found upon the journals of the two houses."
"We are not, however, prepared to say that a different rule might not have subserved the public interest equally well, leaving the legislature and the executive to guard the public interest in this regard, or to become responsible for its neglect."
or of the time when a statute took effect, or of the precise terms of a statute, the judges who are called upon to decide it have a right to resort to any source of information which in its nature is capable of conveying to the judicial mind a clear and satisfactory answer to such question, always seeking first for that which in its nature is most appropriate, unless the positive law has enacted a different rule."
There was no question in that case as to the existence or terms of a statute, and the point in judgment was that the time when an admitted statute took effect, not appearing from the enrolled act, could be shown by the legislative journals. It is scarcely necessary to say that that case does not meet the question here presented.
Nor do the cases of South Ottawa v. Perkins, 94 U. S. 260; Walnut v. Wade, 103 U. S. 683, and Post v. Supervisors, 105 U. S. 667, proceed upon any ground inconsistent with the views we have expressed. In each of those cases, it was held that the question whether a seeming act of the legislature became a law in accordance with the Constitution was a judicial one, to be decided by the courts and judges, and not a question of fact to be tried by a jury, and without considering the question on principle, this Court held, in deference to the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois interpreting the constitution of that state, that it was competent for the court, in determining the validity of an enrolled act, to consult the legislative journals.
facts stated in them, or complete evidence of all that occurs in the progress of business in the respective houses, much less that the authentication of an enrolled bill by the official signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses and of the President, as an act which has passed Congress and been approved by the President, may be overcome by what the journal of either house shows or fails to show.
We are of opinion, for the reasons stated, that it is not competent for the appellants to show, from the journals of either house, from the reports of committees, or from other documents printed by authority of Congress, that the enrolled bill, designated "H.R. 9416," as finally passed, contained a section that does not appear in the enrolled act in the custody of the State Department.
"SEC. 3. That with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing the following articles, and for this purpose, on and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, whenever and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the government of any country producing and exporting sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, raw and uncured, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States, which in view of the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides into the United States he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power, and it shall be his duty, to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in such case and during such suspension duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of or exported from such designated country, as follows, namely:"
"All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall pay duty on their polariscopic tests as follows namely: "
"All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color, all tank bottoms, syrups of cane juice or of beet juice, melada, concentrated melada, concrete and concentrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventy-five degrees, seven-tenths of one cent per pound, and for every additional degree or fraction of a degree shown by the polariscopic test, two-hundredths of one cent per pound additional."
"All sugars above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall be classified by the Dutch standard of color, and pay duty as follows, namely: all sugar above number thirteen and not above number sixteen Dutch standard of color, one and three-eights cent per pound."
"All sugars above number sixteen and not above number twenty Dutch standard of color, one and five-eighths cents per pound."
"All sugars above number twenty Dutch standard of color, two cents per pound."
"Molasses testing above fifty-six degrees, four cents per gallon."
"Sugar drainings and sugar sweepings shall be subject to duty either as molasses or sugar, as the case may be, according to polariscopic test."
"On coffee, three cents per pound."
"On tea, ten cents per pound."
"Hides, raw or uncured, whether dry, salted, or pickled, Angora goatskins, raw, without the wool, unmanufactured, asses' skins, raw or unmanufactured, and skins, except sheepskins, with the wool on, one and one-half cents per pound."
for nearly a century, and that even if the third section were unconstitutional, the remaining parts of the act would stand.
"The President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, in case either France or Great Britain shall so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, to declare the same by proclamation,"
"as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the United States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation shall not"
"shall, from and after the expiration of three months from the date of the proclamation aforesaid, be revived and have full force and effect, so far as relates to the dominions, colonies, and dependencies, and to the articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of the dominions, colonies, and dependencies of the nation thus refusing or neglecting to revoke or modify her edicts in the manner aforesaid. And the restrictions imposed by this act shall, from the date of such proclamation, cease and be discontinued in relation to the nation revoking or modifying her decrees in the manner aforesaid."
"We can see no sufficient reason why the legislature should not exercise its discretion in reviving the Act of March 1, 1809, either expressly or conditionally, as their judgment should direct. The nineteenth section of that act, declaring that it should continue in force to a certain time, and no longer, could not restrict their power of extending its operation without limitation upon the occurrence of any subsequent combination of events."
This certainly is a decision that it was competent for Congress to make the revival of an act depend upon the proclamation of the President showing the ascertainment by him of the fact that the edicts of certain nations had been so revoked or modified that they did not violate the neutral commerce of the United States. The same principle would apply in the case of the suspension of an act upon a contingency to be ascertained by the President and made known by his proclamation.
To what extent do precedents in legislation sustain the validity of the section under consideration, so far as it makes the suspension of certain provisions and the going into operation of other provisions of an act of Congress depend upon the action of the President based upon the occurrence of subsequent events, or the ascertainment by him of certain facts, to be made known by his proclamation? If we find that Congress has frequently, from the organization of the government to the present time, conferred upon the President powers, with reference to trade and commerce, like those conferred by the third section of the Act of October 1, 1890, that fact is entitled to great weight in determining the question before us.
"whenever in his opinion the public safety shall so require, to lay an embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports of the United States, or upon the ships and vessels of the United States, or the ships and vessels of any foreign nation, under such regulations as the circumstances may require, and to continue or revoke the same whenever he shall think proper."
"shall clearly disavow, and shall be found to refrain from, the aggressions, depredations, and hostilities which have been and are by them encouraged and maintained against the vessels and other property of the citizens of the United States, and against their national rights and sovereignty, in violation of the faith of treaties and the laws of nations, and shall thereby acknowledge the just claims of the United States to be considered as in all respects neutral, and unconnected in the present European war, if the same shall be continued, then and thereupon it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, being well ascertained of the premises, to remit and discontinue the prohibitions and restraints hereby enacted and declared, and he shall be, and is hereby, authorized to make proclamation thereof accordingly."
and he shall be, and hereby is, authorized to make proclamation thereof accordingly."
1 Stat. 613, 615. Under the latter act, the President issued, June 26, 1799, and May 21, 1800, proclamations declaring it lawful for vessels departing from the United States to enter certain ports of San Domingo. Life and Works of John Adams, vol. 9, pp. 176, 177.
"That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized further to suspend the operation of the aforesaid act if in his judgment the public interest should require it, provided that such suspension shall not extend beyond the second Monday in December next."
2 Stat. 411. Both of these acts received the approval of President Jefferson.
"whenever the President of the United States shall be satisfied that the discriminating or countervailing duties of such foreign nation, so far as they operate to the disadvantage of the United States,"
3 Stat. 224. Satisfactory proof having been received by President Monroe from the Free City of Bremen that from and after the 12th of May, 1815, all discriminating or countervailing duties of the said city, "so far as they operated to the disadvantage of the United States," had been abolished, he issued, July 24, 1818, his proclamation stating that the acts of Congress upon that subject were repealed so far as the same related to the produce and manufacture of that city. Similar proclamations were issued by him in respect to the produce and manufactures of Hamburg, Lubeck, Norway, and the Dukedom of Ogdenburg. 3 Stat.App. 1.
"that if any foreign nation or its dependencies which have now in force regulations on the subject of the trade in plaster of Paris prohibiting the exportation thereof to certain ports of the United States shall discontinue such regulations, the President of the United States is hereby authorized to declare that fact by his proclamation, and the restrictions imposed by this act shall, from the date of such proclamation, cease and be discontinued in relation to the nation, or its dependencies, discontinuing such regulations."
3 Stat. 361. Proclamations in execution of this act were issued by President Monroe, relating to our trade with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 3 Stat.App. 1.
the same, the President is hereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are, and shall be, suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said nation and the merchandise of its produce or manufacture imported into the United States in the same, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, and merchandise as aforesaid, thereon laden shall be continued, and no longer."
4 Stat. 3. A similar section was embodied in the Act of May 24, 1828, c. 111, relating to the same subject, and is substantially preserved in section 4228 of the Revised Statutes. 4 Stat. 308. In execution of these acts, proclamations were issued by the Presidents of the United States as follows: Adams, July 1, 1828, 4 Stat.App. 815; Jackson, May 11, 1829, June 3, 1829, September 18, 1830, April 28, 1835, and September 1, 1836, 4 Stat.App. 814, 815, 816; 11 Stat.App. 781, 782; Polk, November 4, 1847, 9 Stat.App. 1001; Fillmore, November 1, 1850, 9 Stat.App. 1004; Buchanan, February 25, 1858, 11 Stat.App. 795; Lincoln, December 16, 1863, 13 Stat.App. 739; Johnson, December 28, 1886, and January 29, 1867, 14 Stat.App. 818, 819; Grant, June 12, 1869, November 20, 1869, February 25, 1871, December 19, 1871, September 4, 1872, and October 30, 1872, 16 Stat.App. 1127-1137, 17 Stat.App. 954-957; and Hayes, November 30, 1880, 21 Stat. 800.
A subsequent statute of May 31, 1830, c. 219, repealed all acts and parts of acts which imposed duties upon the tonnage of ships and vessels of foreign nations, provided the President of the United States should be satisfied that the discriminating or countervailing duties of such foreign nations, "so far as they operate to the disadvantage of the United States," had been abolished. 4 Stat. 425. This provision is preserved in section 4219 of the Revised Statutes.
Great Britain of June 5, 1854, President Pierce issued his proclamation, December 12, 1855, declaring that grain, flour, breadstuffs of all kinds, and numerous other specified articles should be admitted free of duty from Newfoundland, he having received satisfactory evidence that that province had consented, "in a due and proper manner," to have the provisions of the above treaty extended to it, and to allow the United States the full benefits of all its stipulations, so far as they were applicable to Newfoundland. 10 Stat. 587; 11 Stat.App. p. 790.
"The President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the importation of neat cattle and the hides of neat cattle may be made without danger of the introduction or spread of contagious or infectious disease among the cattle of the United States, may by proclamation, declare the provisions of this act to be inoperative, and the same shall be afterwards inoperative, and the same shall be afterwards inoperative and of no effect from said proclamation."
14 Stat. 3. These provisions constituted sections 2493 and 2494 of the Revised Statutes until the passage of the Act of March 3, 1883 22 Stat. 489, c. 121, § 6. And by the Tariff Act of 1890, the importation of neat cattle and the hides of neat cattle from foreign countries was prohibited, but authority is given to the Secretary of the Treasury to suspend the operation of the act as to any country whenever he determined that such importation will not lead to the introduction or spread of contagious or infectious diseases among the cattle of the United States. 26 Stat. 616, c. 1244, § 20.
President Arthur issued a proclamation declaring that on and after the first day of March, 1884, so long as the products of, and articles proceeding from, the United States, imported into the Islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, should be exempt from discrimination customs duties, any such duties on the products of, and articles proceeding from, Cuba and Porto Rico under the Spanish flag, should be suspended and discontinued. 23 Stat. 835. President Cleveland, by proclamation of October 13, 1886, revoked this suspension upon the ground that higher and discriminating duties continued to be imposed and levied in the ports named upon certain produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into them from the United States and from foreign countries, in vessels of the United States, than were imposed and levied on the like produce, manufactures, or merchandise carried to those ports in Spanish vessels. 24 Stat. 1028.
"and from time to time thereafter, as often as it may become necessary by reason of changes in the laws of the foreign countries above mentioned, indicate by proclamation the ports to which such suspension shall apply, and the rate or rates of tonnage duty, if any, to be collected under such suspension."
23 Stat. 57. In execution of that act, Presidents Arthur and Cleveland issued proclamations suspending the collection of duties on goods arriving from certain designated ports. 23 Stat. 841, 842, 844.
others, in their application to the case before us, they all show that, in the judgment of the legislative branch of the government, it is often desirable, if not essential, for the protection of the interests of our people against the unfriendly or discriminating regulations established by foreign governments in the interest of their people, to invest the President with large discretion in matters arising out of the execution of statutes relating to trade and commerce with other nations. If the decision in the case of The Brig Aurora had never been rendered, the practical construction of the Constitution, as given by so many acts of Congress and embracing almost the entire period of our national existence, should not be overruled unless upon a conviction that such legislation was clearly incompatible with the supreme law of the land. Stuart v. Laird, 1 Cranch 299, 5 U. S. 309; Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304, 14 U. S. 351; Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 53 U. S. 315; Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U. S. 53, 111 U. S. 57; The Laura, 114 U. S. 411, 114 U. S. 416.
require it;" by the Act of May 1, 1810, to revive a former act, as to Great Britain or France, if either country had not, by a named day, so revoked or modified its edicts as not "to violate the neutral commerce of the United States;" by the Acts of March 3, 1815, and May 31, 1830, to declare the repeal, as to any foreign nation, of the several acts imposing duties on the tonnage of ships and vessels, and on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States, when he should be "satisfied" that the discriminating duties of such foreign nations, "so far as they operate to the disadvantage of the United States," had been abolished; by the Act of March 6, 1866, to declare the provisions of the act forbidding the importation into this country of neat cattle and the hides of neat cattle, to be inoperative "whenever in his judgment" their importation "may be made without danger of the introduction or spread of contagious or infectious disease among the cattle of the United States," must be regarded as unwarranted by the Constitution if the contention of the appellants, in respect to the third section of the Act of October 1, 1890, be sustained.
country while the suspension lasted. Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President. The words "he may deem," in the third section, of course, implied that the President would examine the commercial regulations of other countries producing and exporting sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides and form a judgment as to whether they were reciprocally equal and reasonable, or the contrary, in their effect upon American products. But when he ascertained the fact that duties and exactions reciprocally unequal and unreasonable were imposed upon the agricultural or other products of the United States by a country producing and exporting sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, or hides, it became his duty to issue a proclamation declaring the suspension, as to that county, which Congress had determined should occur. He had no discretion in the premises except in respect to the duration of the suspension so ordered. But that related only to the enforcement of the policy established by Congress. As the suspension was absolutely required when the President ascertained the existence of a particular fact, it cannot be said that in ascertaining that fact, and in issuing his proclamation in obedience to the legislative will, he exercised the function of making laws. 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 simply 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. It was a part of the law itself, as it left the hands of Congress, that the provisions, full and complete in themselves, permitting the free introduction of sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides from particular countries should be suspended in a given contingency, and that in case of such suspension, certain duties should be imposed.
discretion as to its execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law. The first cannot be done; to the latter no valid objection can be made."
"Half the statutes on our books are in the alternative, depending on the discretion of some person or persons to whom is confided the duty of determining whether the proper occasion exists for executing them. But it cannot be said that the exercise of such discretion is the making of the law."
"To assert that a law is less than a law because it is made to depend on a future event or act is to rob the legislature of the power to act wisely for the public welfare whenever a law is passed relating to a state of affairs not yet developed or to things future and impossible to fully know."
"The legislature cannot delegate its power to make a law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend. To deny this would be to stop the wheels of government. There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the lawmaking power, and must therefore be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation."
What has been said is equally applicable to the objection that the third section of the act invests the President with treatymaking power.
The Court is of opinion that the third section of the Act of October 1, 1890, is not liable to the objection that it transfers legislative and treatymaking power to the President. Even if it were, it would not by any means follow that other parts of the act, those which directly imposed duties upon articles imported, would be inoperative. But we need not, in this connection, enter upon the consideration of that question.
nineteen hundred and five, there shall be paid, from any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, under the provisions of section three thousand six hundred and eighty-nine of the Revised Statutes, to the producer of sugar testing not less than ninety degrees by the polariscope, from beets, sorghum, or sugar cane grown within the United States, or from maple sap produced within the United States, a bounty of two cents per pound, and upon such sugar testing less than ninety degrees by the polariscope, and not less than eighty degrees, a bounty of one and three-fourths cents per pound, under such rules and regulations as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe."
of each other, that which is constitutional may stand, while that which is unconstitutional will be rejected."
"It is only when different clauses of an act are so dependent upon each other that it is evident the legislature would not have enacted one of them without the other -- as when the two things provided are necessary parts of one system -- that the whole act will fall with the invalidity of one clause. When there is no such connection and dependency, the act will stand though different parts of it are rejected."
it, a general revenue statute should never be declared inoperative in all its parts because a particular part relating to a distinct subject may be invalid. A different rule might be disastrous to the financial operations of the government and produce the utmost confusion in the business of the entire country.
"If litigations and disputes should arise between subjects of the Sublime Porte and citizens of the United States, the parties shall not be heard, nor shall judgment be pronounced, unless the American Dragoman be present . . and even when they may have committed some offense, they shall not be arrested and put in prison by the local authorities, but they shall be tried by their minister or consul, and punished according to their offense, following in this respect the usage observed towards other Franks."
On the 22d June, 1860, an act was passed to carry into effect this and other treaties of like character, "giving certain judicial powers to consuls or other functionaries of the United States in those countries, and for other purposes." 12 Stat. 72, c. 179. Under this act, the consuls of the United States in Egypt exercised judicial powers over citizens of the United States. Dainese v. Hale, 91 U. S. 13.
"that whenever the President of the United States shall receive satisfactory information that the Ottoman government or that of Egypt has organized other tribunals on a basis likely to secure to citizens of the United States, in their dominions, the same impartial justice which they now enjoy there under the judicial functions exercised by the minister, consuls, and other functionaries of the United States pursuant to the Act of Congress approved the twenty-second of June, eighteen hundred and sixty, . . . he is hereby authorized to suspend the operations of said acts as to the dominions in which such tribunals may be organized so far as the jurisdiction of said tribunals may embrace matters now cognizable by the minister, consuls, or other functionaries of the United States in said dominions, and to notify the government of the Sublime Porte, or that of Egypt, or either of them, that the United States, during such suspension, will as aforesaid accept for their citizens the jurisdiction of the tribunals aforesaid, over citizens of the United States, which has heretofore been exercised by the minister, consuls, or other functionaries of the United States."
MR. JUSTICE LAMAR, with whom concurred MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, dissenting from the opinion but concurring in the judgment of the Court.
whenever and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the government of any country producing and exporting sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, raw and uncured, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States, which in view of the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides into the United States he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power, and it shall be his duty, to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in such case, and during such suspension, duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of or exported from such designated country, as follows, namely."
the President of the United States shall declare by proclamation, and if the other nation shall not, within three months thereafter, so revoke or modify her edicts in like manner,"
"shall, from and after the expiration of three months from the date of the proclamation aforesaid, be revived, and have full force and effect, so far as relates to . . . the nation thus refusing or neglecting to modify her edicts in the manner aforesaid. And the restrictions imposed by this act shall, from the date of such proclamation, cease and be discontinued in relation to the nation revoking or modifying her decrees in the manner aforesaid."
These enactments, in our opinion, transferred no legislative power to the President. The legislation was purely contingent. It provided for an ascertainment by the President of an event in the future -- an event defined in the act and directed to be evidenced by his proclamation. It also prescribed the consequences which were to follow upon that proclamation. Such proclamation was wholly in the nature of an executive act, a prescribed mode of ascertainment, which involved no exercise by the President of what belonged to the lawmaking power. The supreme will of Congress would have been enforced whether the event provided for had or had not happened, either in the continuance of the restrictions of the one hand, or, on and other, in their suspension.
department. It unquestionably vests in the President the power to regulate our commerce with all foreign nations which produce sugar, tea, coffee, molasses, hides, or any of such articles, and to impose revenue duties upon them for a length of time limited solely by his discretion, whenever he deems the revenue system or policy of any nation in which those articles are produced reciprocally unequal and unreasonable in its operation upon the products of this country.
These features of this section are in our opinion in palpable violation of the Constitution of the United States, and serve to distinguish it from the legislative precedents which are relied upon to sustain it as the practice of the government. None of these legislative precedents save the one above referred to has as yet undergone review by this Court or been sustained by its decision. And if there be any congressional legislation which may be construed as delegating to the President the power to suspend any law exempting any importations from duty, or to reimpose revenue duties on them, upon his own judgment as to what constitutes in the policy of other countries a fair and reasonable reciprocity, such legislative precedents cannot avail as authority against a clear and undoubted principle of the Constitution. We say "revenue policy" because the phrase "agricultural or other products of the United States" is comprehensive, and embraces our manufacturing and mining as well as agricultural products, all of which interests are thus entrusted to the discretion of the President, in the adjustment of trade relations with other countries, upon a basis of reciprocity.
While, however, we cannot agree to the proposition that this particular section is valid and constitutional, we do not regard it as such an essential part of the tariff act as to invalidate all its other provisions, and we therefore concur in the judgment of this Court affirming the judgments of the court below in the several cases.

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