Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/96474/steward-mach-co-vs-collector
Timestamp: 2018-03-23 22:57:09
Document Index: 444406385

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 903', '§ 904', '§ 904', 'Art. 1', '§ 8', '§ 301', 'art 1', '§ 493', '§ 107', '§ 489', '§ 10', '§ 1103']

Steward Mach Co Vs Collector - Citation 96474 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Steward Mach. Co. Vs. Collector - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/96474
Case Number 301 U.S. 548
Appellant Steward Mach. Co.
steward mach. co. v. collector - 301 u.s. 548 (1937) u.s. supreme court steward mach. co. v. collector, 301 u.s. 548 (1937) steward machine co. v. collector of internal revenue no. 837 argued april 8, 9, 1937 decided may 24, 1937 301 u.s. 548 certiorari to the circuit court of appeals for the fifth circuit syllabus 1. the tax imposed by title ix of the social security act of august 14, 1935, upon the employer of labor, described as "an excise tax with respect to having individuals in his employ," and which is measured by prescribed percentages of the total wages payable by the employer during the calendar year, is either an "excise," a "duty," or an "impost," within the intent of art. i, sec. 8, of the constitution,.....
Steward Mach. Co. v. Collector - 301 U.S. 548 (1937)
U.S. Supreme Court Steward Mach. Co. v. Collector, 301 U.S. 548 (1937)
1. The tax imposed by Title IX of the Social Security Act of August 14, 1935, upon the employer of labor, described as "an excise tax with respect to having individuals in his employ," and which is measured by prescribed percentages of the total wages payable by the employer during the calendar year, is either an "excise," a "duty," or an "impost," within the intent of Art. I, Sec. 8, of the Constitution, and complies with the requirement of uniformity throughout the United States. Pp. 301 U. S. 578 , 301 U. S. 583 .
2. The enjoyment of common rights, such as the right to employ labor, may constitutionally be taxed. P. 301 U. S. 578 .
Such taxation was practiced in England and among the Colonies before the adoption of the Constitution. P. 301 U. S. 579 .
3. The fact that the Social Security Act, Title IX, supra, exempts from the tax employers of less than eight, and does not apply in respect of agricultural labor, domestic service in private homes, and some other classes of employment does not render it obnoxious to the Fifth Amendment. P. 301 U. S. 584 .
(1) Assuming that the federal tax cannot be treated as a revenue provision standing apart, but must be tested in combination with the 90% credit provision, the tax is not void as involving an unconstitutional attempt to coerce the States to adopt unemployment compensation legislation approved by the Federal Government. P. 301 U. S. 585 .
(2) The problem of unemployment is national as well as local, and in promotion of the general welfare moneys of the Nation may be used to relieve the unemployed and their dependents in economic depressions and to guard against such disasters. P. 301 U. S. 586 .
(3) Title IX may be sustained as a cooperative plan whereby States may be set free to provide unemployment compensation without subjecting themselves to economic disadvantages resulting from the absence of such provision in other States, and whereby, through the assumption of such burdens by the States generally, the financial burden of tho Nation due to unemployment may be correspondingly decreased. P. 301 U. S. 587 .
Duplicated taxes, or burdens that approach them, are hardships that government, state or national, may properly avoid. P. 301 U. S. 589 .
(4) Every rebate from a tax, when conditioned upon conduct, is in some measure a temptation; but motive or temptation is not equivalent to coercion. P. 301 U. S. 589 .
(5) If it be true to say that a power akin to undue influence may be exerted by the national Government on the States, the location of the point at which pressure turns into compulsion, and ceases to be inducement, would be a question of degree -- at times, perhaps, of fact. The point had not been reached when Alabama, by passing her unemployment compensation law, evinced her choice to have relief administered under laws of her own making, by agents of her own selection, instead of under federal laws, administered by federal officers. P. 301 U. S. 589 .
It is one thing to impose a federal tax dependent upon the conduct of the taxpayers, or of the State in which they live, where the conduct to be stimulated or discouraged is unrelated to the fiscal need subserved by the tax in its normal operation, or to any other end legitimately national. It is quite another thing to say that a tax will be abated upon the doing of an act that will satisfy the fiscal need, the tax and the alternative being approximate equivalents. In such circumstances, if in no others, inducement or persuasion does not go beyond the bounds of power. P. 301 U. S. 591 .
5. No surrender of powers essential to the quasi -sovereign existence of States is required by § 903 of Title IX of the Social Security Act, which defines the minimum criteria to which a state compensation system is required to conform if it is to be accepted by the Social Security Board as the basis for credits against the taxes laid on employers by that Title; nor by § 904, which deals with the deposit, investment and withdrawal of the moneys credited. P. 301 U. S. 593 .
6. Semble that the States may constitutionally make with Congress such agreements as do not impair the essence of their statehood. P. 301 U. S. 597 .
Petitioner, an Alabama corporation, paid a tax in accordance with the statute, filed a claim for refund with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and sued to recover the payment ($46.14), asserting a conflict between the statute and the Constitution of the United States. Upon demurrer the District Court gave judgment for the defendant dismissing the complaint, and the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 89 F.2d 207. The decision is in accord with judgments of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ( Howes Brothers Co. v. Massachusetts Unemployment Compensation Comm'n, December 30, 1936, 5 N.E.2d 720), the Supreme Court of California ( Gillum v. Johnson, 7 Cal.2d 744, 62 P.2d 1037), and the Supreme Court of Alabama ( Beeland Wholesale Co. v. Kaufman, 174 So. 516). It is in conflict with a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, from which one judge dissented. Davis v. Boston & Maine R. Co., 89 F.2d 368. An important question of constitutional law being involved, we granted certiorari.
margin. [ Footnote 1 ] Some of the conditions thus attached to the allowance of a credit are designed to give assurance that the state unemployment compensation law shall be one in substance as well as name. Others are designed to give assurance that the contributions shall be protected against loss after payment to the state. To this last end, there
are provisions that, before a state law shall have the approval of the Board it must direct that the contributions to the state fund be paid over immediately to the Secretary of the Treasury to the credit of the "Unemployment Trust Fund." Section 904 establishing this fund is quoted below. [ Footnote 2 ] For the moment, it is enough to say that the Fund is to be held by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is to invest in government securities any portion not required in his judgment to meet current withdrawals. He is authorized and directed to pay out of the Fund to any competent state agency such sums as it may duly requisition from the amount standing to its credit. § 904(f).
As to the argument from history: doubtless there were many excises in colonial days and later that were associated, more or less intimately, with the enjoyment or the use of property. This would not prove, even if no others were then known, that the forms then accepted were not subject to enlargement. Cf. Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union, 96 U. S. 1 , 96 U. S. 9 ; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 , 158 U. S. 591 ; South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437 , 199 U. S. 448 , 199 U. S. 449 . But, in truth, other excises were known, and known since early times. Thus, in 1695 (6 & 7 Wm. III, c. 6), Parliament passed an act which granted "to His Majesty certain Rates and Duties upon Marriage, Births and Burials," all for the purpose of "carrying on the War against France with Vigour." See Opinion of the Justices, 196 Mass. 603, 609, 85 N.E. 545. No commodity was affected there. The industry of counsel has supplied us with an apter illustration where the tax was not different in substance from the one now challenged as invalid. In 1777, before our Constitutional Convention, Parliament laid upon employers an annual "duty" of 21 shillings for "every male Servant" employed in stated forms of work. [ Footnote 3 ]
Revenue Act of 1777, 17 George III, c. 39. [ Footnote 4 ] The point is made as a distinction that a tax upon the use of male servants was thought of as a tax upon a luxury. Davis v. Boston & Maine R. Co., supra. It did not touch employments in husbandry or business. This is to throw over the argument that historically an excise is a tax upon the enjoyment of commodities. But the attempted distinction, whatever may be thought of its validity, is inapplicable to a statute of Virginia passed in 1780. There, a tax of three pounds, six shillings and eight pence was to be paid for every male tithable above the age of twenty-one years (with stated exceptions), and a like tax for "every white servant whatsoever, except apprentices under the age of twenty one years." 10 Hening's Statutes of Virginia, p. 244. Our colonial forbears knew more about ways of taxing than some of their descendants seem to be willing to concede. [ Footnote 5 ]
The historical prop failing, the prop or fancied prop of principle remains. We learn that employment for lawful gain is a "natural" or "inherent" or "inalienable" right, and not a "privilege" at all. But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of less importance. [ Footnote 6 ] An excise is not limited to vocations or activities
that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right. What the individual does in the operation of a business is amenable to taxation just as much as what he owns, at all events if the classification is not tyrannical or arbitrary. "Business is as legitimate an object of the taxing powers as property." Newton v. Atchison, 31 Kan. 151, 154 (per Brewer, J.), 1 Pac. 288. Indeed, ownership itself, as we had occasion to point out the other day, is only a bundle of rights and privileges invested with a single name. Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U. S. 577 . "A state is at liberty, if it pleases, to tax them all collectively, or to separate the faggots and lay the charge distributively." Ibid. Employment is a business relation, if not itself a business. It is a relation without which business could seldom be carried on effectively. The power to tax the activities and relations that constitute a calling considered as a unit is the power to tax any of them. The whole includes the parts. Nashville, C. & St.L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249 , 288 U. S. 267 , 288 U. S. 268 .
The subject matter of taxation open to the power of the Congress is as comprehensive as that open to the power of the states, though the method of apportionment may at times be different. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises." Art. 1, § 8. If the tax is a direct one, it shall be apportioned according to the census or enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise, it shall be uniform throughout the United States. Together, these classes include every form of tax appropriate to sovereignty. Cf. Burnet v. Brooks, 288 U. S. 378 , 288 U. S. 403 , 288 U. S. 405 ; Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U. S. 1 , 240 U. S. 12 . Whether the tax is to be
classified as an "excise" is in truth not of critical importance. If not that, it is an "impost" ( Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U. S. 601 , 158 U. S. 622 , 158 U. S. 625 ; Pacific Insurance Co. v. Soble, 7 Wall. 433, 74 U. S. 445 ), or a "duty" ( Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 75 U. S. 546 , 75 U. S. 547 ; Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U. S. 429 , 157 U. S. 570 ; Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41 , 178 U. S. 46 ). A capitation or other "direct" tax it certainly is not.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U. S. 429 , 157 U. S. 557 . There is no departure from that thought in later cases, but rather a new emphasis of it. Thus, in Thomas v. United States, 192 U. S. 363 , 192 U. S. 370 , it was said of the words "duties, imposts and excises" that
At times taxpayers have contended that the Congress is without power to lay an excise on the enjoyment of a privilege created by state law. The contention has been put aside as baseless. Congress may tax the transmission of property by inheritance or will, though the states and not Congress have created the privilege of succession. Knowlton v. Moore, supra, p. 178 U. S. 58 . Congress may tax the enjoyment of a corporate franchise, though a state and not Congress has brought the franchise into being. Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107 , 220 U. S. 155 . The statute books of the states are strewn with illustrations of taxes laid on
occupations pursued of common right. [ Footnote 7 ] We find no basis for a holding that the power in that regard which belongs by accepted practice to the legislatures of the states, has been denied by the Constitution to the Congress of the nation.
2. The tax being an excise, its imposition must conform to the canon of uniformity. There has been no departure from this requirement. According to the settled doctrine the uniformity exacted is geographical, not intrinsic. Knowlton v. Moore, supra, p. 178 U. S. 83 ; Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., supra, p. 220 U. S. 158 ; Billings v. United States, 232 U. S. 261 , 232 U. S. 282 ; Stellwagen v. Clum, 245 U. S. 605 , 245 U. S. 613 ; LaBelle Iron Works v. United States, 256 U. S. 377 , 256 U. S. 392 ; Poe v. Seaborn, 282 U. S. 101 , 282 U. S. 117 ; Wright v. Vinton Branch Mountain Trust Bank, 300 U. S. 440 . "The rule of liability shall be the same in all parts of the United States." Florida v. Mellon, 273 U. S. 12 , 273 U. S. 17 .
The Fifth Amendment, unlike the Fourteenth, has no equal protection clause. LaBelle Iron Works v. United States, supra; Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., supra, p. 240 U. S. 24 . But even the states, though subject to such a clause, are not confined to a formula of rigid uniformity in framing measures of taxation. Swiss Oil Corp. v. Shanks, 273 U. S. 407 , 273 U. S. 413 . They may tax some kinds of property at one rate, and others at another, and exempt others altogether. Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232 ; Stebbins v. Riley, 268 U. S. 137 , 268 U. S. 142 ; Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146 , 281 U. S. 150 . They may lay an excise on the operations of a particular kind of business, and exempt some other kind of business closely akin thereto. Quong Wing v. Kirkendall, 223 U. S. 59 , 223 U. S. 62 ; American Sugar Refining Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89 , 179 U. S. 94 ; Armour Packing Co. v. Lacy, 200 U. S. 226 , 200 U. S. 235 ; Brown-Forman Co. v. Kentucky, 217 U. S. 563 , 217 U. S. 573 ; Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co., 260 U. S. 245 , 260 U. S. 255 ; State Board of Tax Comm'rs v. Jackson, 283 U. S. 527 , 283 U. S. 537 , 283 U. S. 538 . If this latitude of judgment is lawful for the states, it is lawful, a fortiori, in legislation by the Congress, which is subject to restraints less narrow and confining. Quong Wing v. Kirkendall, supra.
passed upon today in which precisely the same provisions were the subject of attack, the provisions being contained in the Unemployment Compensation Law of the State of Alabama. Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., and Carmichael v. Gulf States Paper Corp., ante, p. 301 U. S. 495 . The opinion rendered in those cases covers the ground fully. It would be useless to repeat the argument. The act of Congress is therefore valid, so far at least as its system of exemptions is concerned, and this though we assume that discrimination, if gross enough, is equivalent to confiscation, and subject under the Fifth Amendment to challenge and annulment.
The proceeds of the excise when collected are paid into the Treasury at Washington, and thereafter are subject to appropriation like public moneys generally. Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, ante, p. 301 U. S. 308 . No presumption can be indulged that they will be misapplied or wasted. [ Footnote 8 ] Even if they were collected in the hope or expectation that some other and collateral good would be furthered as an incident, that, without more, would not make the act invalid. Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506 . This indeed is hardly questioned. The case for the petitioner is built on the contention that, here, an ulterior aim is wrought into the very structure of the act, and what is
To draw the line intelligently between duress and inducement there is need to remind ourselves of facts as to the problem of unemployment that are now matters of common knowledge. West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 . The relevant statistics are gathered in the brief of counsel for the Government. Of the many available figures a few only will be mentioned. During the years 1929 to 1936, when the country was passing through a cyclical depression, the number of the unemployed mounted to unprecedented heights. Often the average was more than 10 million; at times a peak was attained of 16 million or more. Disaster to the breadwinner meant disaster to dependents. Accordingly, the roll of the unemployed, itself formidable enough, was only a partial roll of the destitute or needy. The fact developed quickly that the states were unable to give the requisite relief. The problem had become national in area and dimensions. There was need of help from the nation if the people were not to starve. It is too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that, in a crisis so extreme, the use of the moneys of the nation to relieve the unemployed
and their dependents is a use for any purpose narrower than the promotion of the general welfare. Cf. United States v. Butler, 297 U. S. 1 , 297 U. S. 65 , 297 U. S. 66 , Helvering v. Davis, decided herewith, post, p. 301 U. S. 619 . The nation responded to the call of the distressed. Between January 1, 1933 and July 1, 1936, the states (according to statistics submitted by the Government) incurred obligations of $689,291,802 for emergency relief; local subdivisions an additional $775,675,366. In the same period, the obligations for emergency relief incurred by the national government were $2,929,307,125, or twice the obligations of states and local agencies combined. According to the President's budget message for the fiscal year 1938, the national government expended for public works and unemployment relief for the three fiscal years 1934, 1935, and 1936 the stupendous total of $8,681,000,000. The parens patriae has many reasons -- fiscal and economic as well as social and moral -- for planning to mitigate disasters that bring these burdens in their train.
laws on the eve of the adoption of the Social Security Act, and two others did likewise after the federal act and later in the year. The statutes differed to some extent in type, but were directed to a common end. In 1936, twenty-eight other states fell in line, and eight more the present year. But if states had been holding back before the passage of the federal law, inaction was not owing, for the most part, to the lack of sympathetic interest. Many held back through alarm lest, in laying such a toll upon their industries, they would place themselves in a position of economic disadvantage as compared with neighbors or competitors. See House Report No. 615, 74th Congress, 1st session, p. 8; Senate Report No. 628, 74th Congress, 1st session, p. 11. [ Footnote 9 ] Two consequences ensued. One was that the freedom of a state to contribute its fair share to the solution of a national problem was paralyzed by fear. The other was that, insofar as there was failure by the states to contribute relief according to the measure of their capacity, a disproportionate burden, and a mountainous one, was laid upon the resources of the Government of the nation.
nation as long as states are unwilling, whether through timidity or for other motives, to do what can be done at home. At least the inference is permissible that Congress so believed, though retaining undiminished freedom to spend the money as it pleased. On the other hand, fulfillment of the home duty will be lightened and encouraged by crediting the taxpayer upon his account with the Treasury of the nation to the extent that his contributions under the laws of the locality have simplified or diminished the problem of relief and the probable demand upon the resources of the fisc. Duplicated taxes, or burdens that approach them, are recognized hardships that government, state or national, may properly avoid. Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., supra; Kidd v. Alabama, 188 U. S. 730 , 188 U. S. 732 ; Watson v. State Comptroller, 254 U. S. 122 , 254 U. S. 125 . If Congress believed that the general welfare would better be promoted by relief through local units than by the system then in vogue, the cooperating localities ought not, in all fairness, to pay a second time.
of its intervention, as we have shown, is to safeguard its own treasury and, as an incident to that protection, to place the states upon a footing of equal opportunity. Drains upon its own resources are to be checked; obstructions to the freedom of the states are to be leveled. It is one thing to impose a tax dependent upon the conduct of the taxpayers, or of the state in which they live, where the conduct to be stimulated or discouraged is unrelated to the fiscal need subserved by the tax in its normal operation, or to any other end legitimately national. The Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20 , and Hill v. Wallace, 259 U. S. 44 , were decided in the belief that the statutes there condemned were exposed to that reproach. Cf. United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287 . It is quite another thing to say that a tax will be abated upon the doing of an act that will satisfy the fiscal need, the tax and the alternative being approximate equivalents. In such circumstances, if in no others, inducement or persuasion does not go beyond the bounds of power. We do not fix the outermost line. Enough for present purposes that, wherever the line may be, this statute is within it. Definition more precise must abide the wisdom of the future.
Florida v. Mellon, 273 U. S. 12 , supplies us with a precedent, if precedent be needed. What was in controversy there was § 301 of the Revenue Act of 1926, which imposes a tax upon the transfer of a decedent's estate while at the same time permitting a credit, not exceeding 80 percent, for "the amount of any estate, inheritance, legacy, or succession taxes actually paid to any State or Territory." Florida challenged that provision as unlawful. Florida had no inheritance taxes, and alleged that, under its constitution, it could not levy any. 273 U. S. 273 U.S. 12, 273 U. S. 15 . Indeed, by abolishing inheritance taxes, it had hoped to induce wealthy persons to become its citizens. See 67 Cong.Rec. Part 1, pp. 735, 752. It argued at our bar that "the Estate Tax provision was not passed for the purpose
of raising federal revenue" ( 273 U. S. 273 U.S. 12, 14 [argument of counsel -- omitted]), but rather "to coerce States into adopting estate or inheritance tax laws." 273 U. S. 273 U.S. 12, 13 [argument of counsel -- omitted]. In fact, as a result of the 80 percent credit, material changes of such laws were made in 36 states. [ Footnote 10 ] In the face of that attack, we upheld the act as valid. Cf. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 , 262 U. S. 482 ; also Act of August 5, 1861, c. 45, 12 Stat. 292; Act of May 13, 1862, c. 66, 12 Stat. 384.
United States v. Butler, supra, is cited by petitioner as a decision to the contrary. There, a tax was imposed on processors of farm products, the proceeds to be paid to farmers who would reduce their acreage and crops under agreements with the Secretary of Agriculture, the plan of the act being to increase the prices of certain farm products by decreasing the quantities produced. The court held (1) that the so-called tax was not a true one (pp. 297 U.S. 297 U. S. 56 , 297 U. S. 61 ), the proceeds being earmarked for the benefit of farmers complying with the prescribed conditions, (2) that there was an attempt to regulate production without the consent of the state in which production was affected, and (3) that the payments to farmers were coupled with coercive contracts (p. 297 U. S. 73 ), unlawful in their aim and oppressive in their consequences. The decision was by a divided court, a minority taking the view that the objections were untenable. None of them is applicable to the situation here developed.
Fourth. The statute does not call for a surrender by the states of powers essential to their quasi -sovereign existence.
Argument to the contrary has its source in two sections of the act. One section (903 [ Footnote 11 ]) defines the minimum criteria to which a state compensation system is required to conform if it is to be accepted by the Board as the basis for a credit. The other section (904 [ Footnote 12 ]) rounds out the requirement with complementary rights and duties. Not all the criteria or their incidents are challenged as unlawful. We will speak of them first generally, and then more specifically insofar as they are questioned.
There is argument again that the moneys, when withdrawn, are to be devoted to specific uses, the relief of unemployment, and that, by agreement for such payment, the quasi -sovereign position of the state has been impaired, if not abandoned. But, again, there is confusion between promise and condition. Alabama is still free, without breach of an agreement, to change her system overnight. No officer or agency of the national Government can force a compensation law upon her or keep it in existence. No officer or agency of that Government, either by suit or other means, can supervise or control the application of the payments.
There are very good reasons of fiscal and governmental policy why a State should be willing to make the Secretary of the Treasury the custodian of the fund. His possession of the moneys and his control of investments will be an assurance of stability and safety in times of stress and strain. A report of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, quoted in the margin, develops the situation clearly. [ Footnote 13 ] Nor is there risk of loss
The inference of abdication thus dissolves in thinnest air when the deposit is conceived of as dependent upon a statutory consent, and not upon a contract effective to create a duty. By this we do not intimate that the conclusion would be different if a contract were discovered. Even sovereigns may contract without derogating from their sovereignty. Perry v. United States, 294 U. S. 330 , 294 U. S. 353 ; 1 Oppenheim, International Law, 4th ed., §§ 493, 494; Hall, International Law, 8th ed., § 107; 2 Hyde, International Law, § 489. The states are at liberty, upon obtaining the consent of Congress, to make agreements with one another. Constitution, Art. I, § 10, par. 3. Poole v. Fleeger, 11 Pet. 185, 36 U. S. 209 ; Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 37 U. S. 725 . We find no room for doubt that they may do the like with Congress if the essence of their statehood is maintained without impairment. [ Footnote 14 ] Alabama
The essential provisions of that title have been stated in the opinion. As already pointed out, the title does not appropriate a dollar of the public moneys. It does no more than authorize appropriations to be made in the future for the purpose of assisting states in the administration of their laws, if Congress shall decide that appropriations are desirable. The title might be expunged, and Title IX would stand intact. Without a severability clause, we should still be led to that conclusion. The presence of such a clause (§ 1103) makes the conclusion even clearer. Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235 , 278 U. S. 242 ; Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, 286 U. S. 165 , 286 U. S. 184 ; Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238 , 298 U. S. 312 .
"and that, 'without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States.' [ Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 74 U. S. 76 .] Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States."
to the people, by reservation, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States." The Constitution thus affirms the complete supremacy and independence of the state within the field of its powers. Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238 , 298 U. S. 295 . The federal government has no more authority to invade that field than the state has to invade the exclusive field of national governmental powers; for, in the oft-repeated words of this court in Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 74 U. S. 725 ,
The necessity of preserving each from every form of illegitimate intrusion or interference on the part of the other is so imperative as to require this court, when its judicial power is properly invoked, to view with a careful and discriminating eye any legislation challenged as constituting such an intrusion or interference. See South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437 , 199 U. S. 448 .
An illustration of what I regard as permissible cooperation is to be found in Title I of the act now under consideration. By that title, federal appropriations for old-age assistance are authorized to be made to any state which shall have adopted a plan for old-age assistance conforming to designated requirements. But the state is not obliged, as a condition of having the federal bounty, to deposit in the federal treasury funds raised by the state. The state keeps its own funds and administers its own law in respect of them, without let or hindrance of any kind on the part of the federal government; so that we have simply the familiar case of federal aid upon conditions which the state, without surrendering any of its powers, may accept or not as it chooses. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 , 262 U. S. 480 , 262 U. S. 482 -483.
By these various provisions of the act, the federal agencies are authorized to supervise and hamper the administrative powers of the state to a degree which not only does not comport with the dignity of a quasi -sovereign
In the License Cases, 5 How. 504, 46 U. S. 588 , Mr. Justice McLean said that the federal government was supreme within the scope of its delegated powers, and the state governments equally supreme in the exercise of the powers not delegated by nor inhibited to them; that the states exercise their powers over everything connected with their social and internal condition, and that, over these subjects, the federal government had no power. "They appertain to the State sovereignty as exclusively as powers exclusively delegated appertain to the general government."
In Farrington v. Tennessee, 95 U. S. 679 , 95 U. S. 685 , this court said,
"The powers exclusively given to the federal government," it was said in Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 31 U. S. 570 ,
Carter v. Carter Coal Co., supra, p. 298 U. S. 295 . The purpose of the Constitution in that regard does not admit of doubt or qualification, and it can be thwarted no more by voluntary surrender from within than by invasion from without.
* Compare 85 U. S. United States, 18 Wall. 317, 85 U. S. 319 -320.