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Manchester v. Massachusetts :: 139 U.S. 240 (1891) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
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Manchester v. Massachusetts 139 U.S. 240 (1891)
U.S. Supreme CourtManchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U.S. 240 (1891)Manchester v. MassachusettsNo. 1518Argued January 14-15, 1891Decided March 16, 1891139 U.S. 240ERROR TO THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF
"SECTION 1. No person shall draw, set, stretch, or use any dragnet, set-net or gill-net, purse or sweep seine of any kind for taking fish anywhere in the waters of Buzzard's Bay within the jurisdiction of this commonwealth, nor in any harbor, cove, or bight of said bay, except as hereinafter provided. "Page 139 U. S. 241
Under that statute, a complaint in writing under oath was made on behalf of the commonwealth before a trial justice Page 139 U. S. 242 in and for the County of Barnstable in Massachusetts, that Arthur Manchester at Falmouth, in the County of Barnstable, on the 19th day of July, in the year 1889, did then and there draw, set, stretch, and use a purse seine for the taking of fish in the waters of Buzzard's Bay, within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. Under a warrant issued on this complaint, Manchester was, on the 1st of August, 1889, brought before the trial justice, and pleaded not guilty. The justice found him guilty on a hearing of the case, and imposed upon him a fine of $100, to the use of the commonwealth, and costs, and ordered that, if the fine and costs should not be paid, he should be committed to jail, there to be kept until he should pay them, or be otherwise discharged by due course of law.
"This was a complaint under section 1 of chapter 192 of the Statutes of 1886. A copy of the complaint is annexed and made a part of this report. The evidence of the commonwealth tended to show that the defendant and others, who were citizens of Rhode Island and were officers and crew of the fishing steamer called the A. T. Serrell, on the day named in the complaint were engaged in drawing, setting, stretching, and using a purse seine for the taking of fish in the waters of Buzzard's Bay. The place where the defendant was so engaged with said seine was about, and not exceeding, one mile and a quarter from a point on the shore midway from the north line of said town to the south line thereof. The point where the defendant was so using said Page 139 U. S. 243 seine was within that part of Buzzard's Bay which the harbor and land commissioners, acting under the provisions of section 2 of chapter 196 of the Acts of the year 1881, had, so far as they were capable of doing so, assigned to and made a part of the Town of Falmouth. A copy of the map showing boundary lines between the adjacent cities and towns bordering on Buzzard's Bay as so located by said commissioners was used at the trial, and may be referred to. The point where the defendant was using said seine is marked 'A' on said plan. The commonwealth's evidence tended to show that the defendant and his associates, on said day and at the point described, caught with said seine a large quantity of the fish called 'menhaden.' In this act of fishing, no fixed apparatus was used, and the bottom of the sea was not encroached upon or disturbed. The commonwealth further offered evidence tending to show that the distance between the headlands at the mouth of Buzzard's Bay, viz., at Westport, in the County of Bristol, on the one side, and the Island of Cuttyhunk, in the County of Dukes, on the other side, was more than one and less than two marine leagues. The Island of Cuttyhunk is the most southerly of the chain of islands lying to the eastward of Buzzard's Bay, and known as the 'Elizabeth Islands.' The distance across said bay at the point where the acts of the defendant were done is more than two marine leagues, and the opposite points are in different counties. The defendant did not dispute any of the testimony offered by the commonwealth, but introduced evidence tending to show that he was engaged in fishing for menhaden only, and that he caught no other fish excepting menhaden; that menhaden is not a food fish, and is only valuable for the purpose of bait and of manufacture into fish oil, and that the taking of said menhaden by seining does not tend in any way to decrease the quantity and variety of food fishes. The defendant offered evidence further tending to show that he was in the employ of the firm of Charles Cook and others, who were engaged in the State of Rhode Island in the business of seining menhaden to be sold for bait and to be manufactured into fish oil and fish manure. The defendant further offered testimony tending to show that it was impossible to Page 139 U. S. 244 discern objects across from one headland to the other at the mouth of Buzzard's Bay. The defendant's evidence showed that the said steamer was of Newport, Rhode Island, duly enrolled and licensed at that port under the laws of the United States for carrying on the menhaden fishery, and it was conceded by the commonwealth that the defendant was employed upon the vessel described by said enrollment and license, and at the time of the commission of the acts complained of, he and his associates were so in the employ of the vessel described in said license. The district attorney stated that he should not controvert any of the foregoing evidence, but claimed that it was incompetent in defense of this complaint; but, for the purposes of the trial, I admitted the testimony. The foregoing is all the evidence offered at the trial of this complaint. It was conceded that the defendant could not be convicted if chapter 212 of the Acts of 1865 was not repealed by the statute of 1886, chapter 192. At the conclusion of the evidence, the defendant asked me to rule as follows: 1. As the government does not claim that the act complained of is in violation of any statute except of chapter 192 of the Acts of 1886, the defendant, notwithstanding that statute, is authorized to take menhaden by the use of the purse seine in the waters of Buzzard's Bay in the place where this act was committed. 2. Chapter 192 of the Acts of the year 1886 did not repeal chapter 212 of the Acts of the year 1865. 3. The defendant may lawfully take menhaden by the use of the purse seine in Buzzard's Bay, in the place where the acts complained of in this case were done. And also: 1. The act complained of was on the high seas, and without the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. 2. The act complained of having been done under a United States license for carrying on this fishery, the defendant cannot be held as a criminal for violating a statute of this commonwealth. 3. The defendant cannot be held unless the act complained of was done and committed within the body of a county, as understood at common law. 4. The statute of this commonwealth prohibiting under a penalty the use of nets and seines and the taking of fish within three miles of the shore is invalid, especially as against a license to fish granted Page 139 U. S. 245 under the laws of the United States. The defendant further asked me to rule that on all the evidence, the defendant could not be convicted. I declined to rule as requested by the defendant, and submitted the case to the jury with the instruction that the statute of 1865 was repealed by the statute of 1886, and with the instruction that if they found that the defendant was engaged in using a purse seine for the taking of fish of any kind in that part of Buzzard's Bay which was within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they would be authorized to convict the defendant, and that the place where the acts of the defendant were committed, being within a marine league from the shore at low water mark, was within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and now, after verdict, and at the request of the defendant, and by the consent of the parties, I report the case, with my rulings at the trial of the same, for the determination of the Supreme Judicial Court."
"4. That chapter 192 of the Acts of the General Court of Massachusetts for the year 1886, as construed by the court, was valid notwithstanding the provisions of the Constitution and laws above cited, or any provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States. "Page 139 U. S. 254
The principal contentions in this Court on the part of the defendant are that although Massachusetts, if an independent nation, could have enacted a statute like the one in question, which her own courts would have enforced and which other nations would have recognized, yet when she became one of the United States, she surrendered to the general government her right of control over the fisheries of the ocean, and transferred to it her rights over the waters adjacent to the coast and a part of the ocean; that, as by the Constitution, Article III, Section 2, the judicial power of the United States is made to extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, it is consistent only with that view that the rights in respect of fisheries should be regarded as national rights and be enforced only in national courts; that the proprietary right of Massachusetts is confined to the body of the county; that the offense committed by the defendant was committed outside of that territory, in a locality where legislative control did not rest upon title in the soil and waters, but upon rights of sovereignty inseparably connected with national character, and which were entrusted exclusively to enforcement in admiralty courts; that the commonwealth has no jurisdiction upon the ocean within three miles of the shore; that it could not, by the statute in question, oust the United States of jurisdiction; that fishing upon the high seas is in its nature an integral part of national commerce, and its control and regulation are necessarily vested in Congress, and not in the individual states; that Congress has manifested its purpose to take the regulation of coast fisheries, in the particular covered by the Massachusetts statute in question, by the joint resolution of Congress of February 9, 1871, 16 Stat. 593, establishing the fish commission, and by Title 51 of the Revised Statutes, entitled "Regulation of Fisheries," and by the Act of Page 139 U. S. 255 February 28, 1887, c. 288, 24 Stat. 434, relating to the mackerel fisheries, and by acts relating to bounties, privileges, and agreements, and by granting the license under which the defendant's steamer was fishing, and that, in view of the act of Congress authorizing such license, no statute of a state could defeat the right of the defendant to fish in the high seas under it.
"SEC. 2. The harbor and land commissioners shall locate and define the courses of the boundary lines between adjacent cities and towns bordering upon the sea and upon arms of the sea from high water mark outward to the line of the commonwealth, as defined in said section one [section one of chapter one of the General Statutes], so that the same shall conform as nearly as may be to the course of the boundary lines between said adjacent cities and towns on the land, and they shall file a report of their doings, with suitable plans and exhibits, showing the boundary lines of any town by them located and defined, in the registry of deeds in which deeds of real estate situated in such town are required to be recorded, and also in the office of the secretary of the commonwealth. "Page 139 U. S. 256
Section 1 of chapter 1 of the General Statutes contains the provisions before recited as now contained in the Public Statutes, chapter 1 of section 1 and chapter 22, sections 1 and 11. Buzzard's Bay was undoubtedly within the territory described in the charter of the Colony of New Plymouth and the Province charter. By the definitive Treaty of Peace of September 3, 1783, between the United States and Great Britain, 8 Stat. 81, His Page 139 U. S. 257 Britannic majesty acknowledged the United States, of which Massachusetts Bay was one, to be free, sovereign, and independent states, and declared that he treated with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquished all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same end every part thereof. Therefore, if Massachusetts had continued to be an independent nation, her boundaries on the sea, as defined by her statutes, would unquestionably be acknowledged by all foreign nations, and her right to control the fisheries within those boundaries would be conceded. The limits of the right of a nation to control the fisheries on its seacoasts and in the bays and arms of the sea within its territory have never been placed at less than a marine league from the coast on the open sea, and bays wholly within the territory of a nation the headlands of which are not more than two marine leagues or six geographical miles apart have always been regarded as a part of the territory of the nation in which they lie. Proceedings of the Halifax Commission of 1877 under the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871, Executive Document No. 89, 45th Congress, 2d session, H.R., pp. 120, 121, 166.
In Direct U.S. Cable Co. v. Anglo-American Tel. Co., L.R. 2 App.Cas. 394, it became necessary for the Privy Council to determine whether a point in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, more than three miles from the shore, was a part of the territory Page 139 U. S. 258 of Newfoundland and within the jurisdiction of its legislature. The average width of the bay was about fifteen miles, and the distance between its headlands was rather more than twenty miles, but it was held that Conception Bay was a part of the territory of Newfoundland, because the British government had exercised exclusive dominion over it, with the acquiescence of other nations, and it had been declared by act of Parliament "to be part of the British territory, and part of the country made subject to the Legislature of Newfoundland." We think it must be regarded as established that, as between nations, the minimum limit of the territorial jurisdiction of a nation over tidewaters is a marine league from its coast; that bays wholly within its territory, not exceeding two marine leagues in width at the mouth, are within this limit, and that included in this territorial jurisdiction is the right of control over fisheries, whether the fish be migratory free-swimming fish, or free-moving fish, or fish attached to or imbedded in the soil. The open sea within this limit is, of course, subject to the common right of navigation, and all governments, for the purpose of self-protection in time of war or for the prevention of frauds on its revenue, exercise an authority beyond this limit. Gould on Waters, part 1, c. 1, §§ 1-17, and notes; Neill v. Duke of Devonshire, 8 App.Cas. 135; Gammell v. Commissioners, 3 Macq. 419; Mowat v. McFee, 5 Sup.Ct. of Canada 66; Queen v. Cubitt, 22 Q.B.D. 622; St. 46 & 47 Vict. c. 22.
It is further insisted by the plaintiff in error that the control of the fisheries of Buzzard's Bay is, by the Constitution of the United States, exclusively with the United States, and that the statute of Massachusetts is repugnant to that Constitution and to the laws of the United States. In Dunham v. Lamphere, 3 Gray 268, it was held, Chief Justice Shaw delivering the opinion of the court, that in the distribution of powers between the general and state governments, the right to the fisheries, and the power to regulate the fisheries on the coasts and in the tidewaters of the state, were left by the Constitution of the United States with the states, subject only to such powers as Congress may justly Page 139 U. S. 259 exercise in the regulation of commerce, foreign and domestic. In the present case, the court below was asked to reconsider that decision, mainly on the ground that the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the courts of the United States was not considered in the opinion, and that the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the power of Congress to regulate commerce required that the decision be reconsidered; but the court stated that no recent decisions of this Court had been cited which related to the regulation of fisheries within the territorial tidewaters of a state, and that the decisions of this Court which related to that subject did not appear to be in conflict with the decision in Dunham v. Lamphere, and that it never had been decided any where that the regulation of the fisheries within the territorial limits of a state was a regulation of commerce.
"The title thus held is subject to the paramount right of navigation, the regulation of which, in respect to foreign and interstate commerce, has been granted to the United States. There has been, however, no such grant of power over the fisheries. These remain under the exclusive control of the state, which has consequently the right, in its discretion, to appropriate its tidewaters and their beds to be used by its people as a common for taking and cultivating fish Page 139 U. S. 260 so far as it may be done without obstructing navigation. Such an appropriation is in effect nothing more than a regulation of the use by the people of their common property. The right which the people of the state thus acquire comes not from their citizenship alone, but from their citizenship and property combined. It is, in fact a property right, and not a mere privilege or immunity of citizenship."
"not touch the subject of the common liberty of taking oysters save for the purpose of guarding it from injury, to whomsoever it may belong and by whomsoever it may be enjoyed. Whether this liberty belongs exclusively to the citizens of the State of Maryland or may lawfully be enjoyed Page 139 U. S. 261 in common by all citizens of the United States; whether this public use may be restricted by the state to its own citizens, or a part of them, or by force of the Constitution of the United States must remain common to all citizens of the United States; whether the national government, by a treaty or act of Congress, can grant to foreigners the right to participate therein; or what, in general, are the limits of the trust upon which the state holds this soil, or its power to define and control that trust -- are matters wholly without the scope of this case, and upon which we give not opinion."
The dimensions of Chesapeake Bay do not appear in the report of the case, but it has been said that this bay is "twelve miles across at the ocean." 1 Bish.Crim.Law. § 105. It is a bay considerably larger than Buzzard's Bay, and is not wholly within the State of Maryland, although at the point where Page 139 U. S. 262 Anne Arundel County bounds upon it, it is wholly in that state. Haney v. Compton, 36 N.J.Law 507; Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash.C.C. 371; Weston v. Sampson, 8 Cush. 347; Mahler v. Norwich & New York Transportation Co., 35 N.Y. 352; United States v. Smiley, 6 Sawyer 640.
Under the grant by the Constitution of judicial power to the United States in all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and under the rightful legislation of Congress, personal suits on maritime contracts or for maritime torts can be maintained in the state courts, and the courts of the United States, merely by virtue of this grant of judicial power, and in the absence of legislation by Congress, have no criminal jurisdiction whatever. The criminal jurisdiction of the courts of the United States is wholly derived from the statutes of the United States. Butler v. Boston & Savannah Steamship Co., 130 U.S. Page 139 U. S. 263 527; The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624; The Eagle, 8 Wall. 15; Leon v. Galceran, 11 Wall. 185; Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522, 9 R.I. 419; Schoonmaker v. Gilmore, 102 U. S. 118; Insurance Co. v. Dunham, 11 Wall. 1; Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 137 U. S. 211. In each of the cases of United States v. Bevans, 3 Wheat. 336, and of Commonwealth v. Peters, 12 Met. 387, the place where the offense was committed was in Boston Harbor, and it was held to be within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts according to the meaning of the statutes of the United States which punished certain offenses committed upon the high seas or in any river, haven, basin, or bay "out of the jurisdiction of any particular state." The test applied in Commonwealth v. Peters, which was decided in the year 1847, was that the place was within a bay "not so wide but that persons and objects on the one side can be discerned by the naked eye by persons on the opposite side," and was therefore within the body of a county. In United States v. Bevans, Marshall, C.J., said:
It is also contended that the jurisdiction of a state as between it and the United States must be confined to the body of counties; that counties must be defined according to the customary English usage at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United states; that by this usage, counties were bounded by the margin of the open sea, and that, as to bays and arms of the sea extending into the land, only such or such parts were included in counties as were so marrow that objects in counties as were so narrow that objects shore to the other by the naked eye. But there is no indication that the customary Page 139 U. S. 264 law of England in regard to the boundaries of counties was adopted by the Constitution of the United States as a measure to determine the territorial jurisdiction of the states. The extent of the territorial jurisdiction of Massachusetts over the sea adjacent to its coast is that of an independent nation, and except so far as any right of control over this territory has been granted to the United States, this control remains with the state. In United States v. Bevans, Marshall, C.J., in the opinion, asks the following questions:
The statutes of Massachusetts, in regard to bays at least, make definite boundaries which, before the passage of the statutes, were somewhat indefinite, and Rhode Island and some other states have passed similar statutes defining their boundaries. Public Statutes of Rhode Island, 1882, c. 1, §§ 1, 2; c. 3, § 6; Gould on Waters, § 16, and note. The waters of Buzzard's Bay are, of course, navigable waters of the United States, and the jurisdiction of Massachusetts over them is necessarily limited, Commonwealth v. King, 150 Mass. 221, but there is no occasion to consider the power of the United States to regulate or control, either by treaty or legislation, the fisheries in these waters, because there are no existing treaties or acts of Congress which relate to the menhaden fisheries Page 139 U. S. 265 within such a bay. The rights granted to British subjects by the Treaties of June 5, 1854, and May 8, 1871, to take fish upon the shores of the United States, had expired before the statute of Massachusetts (St. 1886, c. 192) was passed which the defendant is charged with violating. The fish commission was instituted "for the protection and preservation of the food fishes of the coast of the United States." Title 51 of the Revised Statutes relates solely to food fisheries, and so does the act of 1887. Nor are we referred to any decision which holds that the other acts of Congress alluded to apply to fisheries for menhaden, which is found as a fact in this case not to be a food fish, and to be only valuable for the purpose of bait and of manufacture into fish oil.
"The commissioner may take or cause to be taken at all times in the waters of the seacoast of the United States where the tide ebbs and flows, and also in the waters of the lakes, such fish or specimens thereof as may in his judgment, from time to time, be needful or proper for the Page 139 U. S. 266 conduct of his duties, any law, custom, or usage of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."