Case Name: HODGES v. UNITED STATES
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1906-05-28
Citations: 203 U.S. 1
Docket Number: No. 14
Parties: HODGES v. UNITED STATES.
Judges: ■ Mr. Justice Brown concurs in the judgments.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 203
Pages: 1–38

Head Matter:
HODGES v. UNITED STATES.
ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OP THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OP ARKANSAS.
No. 14
of October Term, 1905.
Submitted October 19, 1905. — Restored to the docket, for oral argument, November 6, 1905. — Argued April 23, 1906.
Decided May 28, 1906.
—Opinion withheld until dissent filed, October 24,1906.
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments operate solely on state action and not oh individual action. Unless the Thirteenth Amendment vests jurisdiction in the National Government, the remedy for wrongs committed by, iridividuals on persons of African descent is through state action and state tribunals, subject to supervision of this court by writ of error in proper cases.
Notwithstanding the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the .National Government’ still remains one of enumerated powers, and the Tenth Amendment is not shorn of its vitality.
Slavery and involuntary servitude as denounced by the Thirteenth Amendment mean a condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another; and while the cause inciting that amendment was the emancipation of the colored race, it reaches every race and every individual.
The-result of the Amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War ivas to abolish slavery, and to make the emancipated slaves citizens and not wards of the Nation over whom Congress retained jurisdiction. This decision of the people is binding upon the courts; and they cannot attempt to determine whether it was the wiser course.
The United States court has no jurisdiction under the Thirteenth Amendment- or sections 1978, 1979,. 5508, 5510, Revised Statutes, of a charge of conspiracy made and carried out in a State to prevent citizens of African descent, because of their race and color, from making or carrying out contracts and agreements to labor.
On October 8, 1903, the grand jury returned into the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Arkansas .-an indictment charging that the defendants, (now .plaintiffs in error,) with others, “did knowingly, willfully and unlawfully conspire to oppress, threaten and intimidate Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan.Shelton, Jim Hall and George Shelton, citizehs of the United States of African descent, in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights and privileges secured to them and each of them by the Constitution and laws of the United States and because of their having. exercised the same, to wit: The said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall and George Shelton, being then and there persons of African descent and citizens of the United States and of the State of Arkansas, had then and there made and entered into contracts.and agreements with James A. Davis and James S. Hodges, persons then and there doing business under the name of Davis & Hodges as copart-ners, carrying -on the lousiness of manufacturers of lumber at White Hall, in said county, -the said contracts being for the employment by said firm of - the said Berry Winn, Dave ■Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall and George Shelton as laborers and workmen' in and about, their said manufacturing establishment, by., which contracts the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall and George Shejton were on their part to perform labor and services' at said manufactory and were to receive, on the other hand, for their labor and services, compensation, the same being a right and privilege conferred upon them by. the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the laws passed in pursuance thereof, and being a right similar to that enjoyed in said State by the white citizens thereof, and while the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton were in the enjoyment of said right and privilege the said defendants did knowingly,. willfully, and .unlawfully conspire as aforesaid to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate them in the free exercise and enjoyment of said right and privilege, and because of their having so exercised the same and because they were citizens of African descent, enjoying said right, by then and there notifying the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton that they -must abandon said contracts and their said work at said mill and cease to perform any further labor thereat, or receive any further compensation for said labor, and by threatening in case they did not so abandon said work to injure them, and by thereafter then and there willfully and unlawfully marching and moving in a body to and against- the place of business of the said firm while the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall-, and George Shelton were engaged thereat and while they were- in the performance of said contracts thereon, the said defendants being then and there armed with deadly weapons, threatening and intimidating the said workmen there employed, with the purpose of compelling them by violence and threats and otherwise to remove from said place of business, to stop said work and to cease the enjoyment of said right and privilege, and by then and there willfully, deliberately, and unlawfully compelling said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg, Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton to quit said work and abandon said place and cease the free enjoyment of all advantages under said contracts, the same being, so done by said defendants and each of them for the purpose of driving the said Berry Winn, Dave Hinton, Percy Legg,. Joe Mardis, Joe McGill, Dan Shelton, Jim Hall, and George Shelton from said place of business and from their labor because they were colored men and citizens of African descent, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States.”
A demurrer to this indictment, on the ground that the offense created by sections 1977 and 5508, Rey. Stat., under which it was found, was not within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, but was judicially cognizable by state tribunals only, was overruled,.a trial had, and the three plaintiffs in error found guilty, sentenced separately co imprisonment for different terms and to fine, and to be thereafter ineligible to any office of profit or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Sections 1977, 1978, 1979, 5508 and 5510 read as follows:
“Sec. 1977. All persops within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
“Sec. 1978. All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and- personal property.
“Sec. 1979. Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen- of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or. immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be.liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
"Sec. 5508. If two or more persons conspire to injure, .oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in. the-free exercise or .enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free .exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured, they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years; and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office, or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
“Sec. 5510. Every person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured or protected by the -'Constitution and laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such inhabitant being an alien, or by reason of his color or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of- citizens, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment ■ not more than one year, or by both.”
There being constitutional questions involved, the judgment was brought directly to this court on writ of error.
Mr. James P. Clarke, Mr. L. C. Going and Mr. J. F. Gautney, for plaintiffs in error,
submitted:
Plaintiffs in error demurred and contended below and contend here that—
The matters, things and ¿ll'egátions therein contained do not constitute a public offense against the laws of the United States; section 1977 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, upon which the indictment is founded, is unconstitutional; section 1977 of the Revised Statutes, when taken, and construed with section 5508 of the same, in so far as it .creates offenses and imposes penalties, is in violation of the Constitution; the offenses created by the said sections are not within the jurisdiction of the United States, and are cognizable before state tribunals only.
The court below overruled the demurrer and sustained the position of the Government on the ground that the right enjoyed by the African citizens set out in the indictment was a right secured to them under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. But see where in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, this court held all rights are not so granted or secured. Whether one is so or not is a question of law to be determined by the court, not the prosécutor.
This case is resolved into a simple question: Is the right to contract one guaranteed or secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States? Or, is the right of a citizen of African descent to make or enforce a contract a right granted or secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States?
The court below failed to recognize the distinction between rights declared and recognized, but not granted or secured by the Constitution and laws. Such a distinction exists and has been noticed by this court. Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, 286.
Citizenship under the laws of the various States' of this Union is not essential to.the right to contract. Aliens are permitted to contract, and to have and enforce the same rights in reference thereto as citizens. The right to contract existed' long, prior to the Declaration of Independence, or the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment did nothing more than to create or make a freeman of a slave. Since he beóame a freeman the municipal laws of the land give to him the right to contract, to sue and be sued in the State or municipality in which he resides.
The right to pursue or follow any of the ordinary vocations of life are not created by the Constitution or laws of the United States, but' are among the inherent and inalienable rights of man, and are, therefore, not dependent for their existence upon the Constitution. Butchers' Union v.- Crescent City Co., Ill U. S. 746; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 13.
Admitting the facts alleged in the indictment to be true, it does not follow that the conspiracy upon a part of certain individuals to intimidate or interfere with a Negro citizen in the performance of Iris contract fastens upon the Negro any badge of slavery any more than it would be held to fasten a badge of slavery upon a white man if his right to contract should be interfered with by intimidations or threats.
The most that can be said of the acts alleged in the indictment is that they are a violation or in violation of the criminal laws of the State of Arkansas. The Thirteenth Amendment has respect not to distinction of race or class or color, but to slavery.
The Constitution prohibits a State from passing a law impairing the obligation of a contract. This did not give Congress power to provide laws for general enforcement of contracts, nor power to invest the courts of the United States with power over contracts so as to enable parties to sue upon them in these courts. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3.
Examples of some of the rights guaranteed or secured by the Constitution and'laws of the'United States are those such as patents, trade-marks, right to homestead public lands, to vote in Federal elections, etc. United States v. Waddell, 112 U. S. 76.
But a conspiracy to intimidate- and compel officers of a mining company to discharge their employes, or to compel the employés to leave the service of the company, is not'an offense against the laws of the United States. Pettibone v. United States, 149 U. St. 202.
The Emancipation Proclamation by removing the disability of slavery made the Negro a citizen and placed him upon the same plane before the law as the white race. United States v..Rhodes, 1 Abb. (U. S.) 28; 1 Kent Com., 298 and note; State v. Manuel, 4 Dev. & Batt. (N. C.) 28.
In the last-mentioned authority will be found an unanswerable argument upon that proposition. In discussing the question of a free Negro, Judge Gaston, speaking for the court, said: “Under the laws of this State, all human beings within it who are not slaves fall within one of two classes, aliens or citizens. Slaves manumitted here become free men, and all ■ free persons born within the State are citizens.”
This case was cited and approved in State v. Newsom, 5.íred: (N. C.) 250.
If, on the other hand, the African citizen acquired his’ rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, which include the right to contract, from the statutes under consideration or the Thirteenth Amendment, he has acquired rights, privileges and protection by virtue of that instrument which the white man, by whom it was made, did not and could not secure to himself.
According to the theory of the Government in this case,’ when the color is changed and the white man becomes the conspirator, and the . citizen of African descent the victim, the strong arm of the Government can and will be stretched forth to protect the citizen of African descent. It cannot be possible that the Thirteenth Amendment can give to the Congress of the United States the right to enact a code of municipal laws merely for the purpose of protecting citizens of African descent in their right to contract.
If individuals should undertake to enforce upon citizens of African descent or upon any other person’s any form or badge of slavery, it cannot be doubted that this would make a cause of action cognizable in the United States courts.
The Peonage Cases, 197 U. S. 207, are all illustrations of the applicability of the laws under' discussion. As to the constitutionality of sectioil 5519 of the Revised Statutes, see United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 626.
The Attorney General, with whom Mr. Milton D. Purdy, Assistant to the Attorney General, and Mr. Otis J. Carlton, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, were on the brief for the United States.
The question of law is:
Has a colored citizen of the United States of African descent a right secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States to work at any .particular occupation or calling — as, for example, in the capacity of a common laborer in ' the (manufacture of- lumber — and, therefore, free from injury, oppression, or interference on the part of individual citizens, when the motive for such injury, oppression, o.r interference arises solely from the fact that such laborer is a colored person of .African descent?
This question does not involve the constitutionality of § 5508, Rev. Stat., which is not open to doubt, Motes V. United States,. 178 U. S. 458, but simply whether the phrase “any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws ,of the United States,” includes the right charged in this ■indictment as having been secured to the colored citizens who were driven away' from work by. the unlawful acts of individuals. In view of United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 545, and Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263, 293> it is vain to contend that the Federal Constitution secures to a citizen of the United States the right to work at a given occupation or particular calling free from injury,-oppression, or interference by individual citizens. Even though such right be a natural or inalienable right, the duty of protecting the "citizen in the enjoyment of such right, free from individual interference,, rests, alone with the State.
Unless, therefore, the additional element of infliction of an injury upon one individual citizen by another, solely on account of his color, be sufficient ground to redress such injury the individual citizen suffering such injury must be left for redress of his grievance to the state laws. In what .may- be called the old Constitution — the Constitution as it stood before the war amendments — there were no provisions which could be invoked to support § 1977. Art. IV, section 2, provided: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” If this section were not inapplicable on other grounds, it could not be invoked here, for it is prohibitive only of state action. Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418; Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 643; Blake v. McClung, 172 U. S. 236.
And for a similar reason the power can not be sought in the Fourteenth Amendment. United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542; Virginia v. Rives, 100 Ü. S. 313; Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629; James v. Bowman, 190 U. S. 127.
Under the Thirteenth Amendment, however, Congress may enact laws operating primarily upon individuals, United States v. Clyatt, 197 U.' S. 207, and if § 1977 can not be sustained under that Amendment the Government’s case must fail. The Thirteenth Amendment was intended to secure to the colored race practical freedom. For its history, and history of the Civil Rights Bill, see Cong. Globe, Vol. 69, pp. 474, 503; speeches of Mr. Howard, Mr. Trumbull, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Cowan.
And as to the scope of the Amendment and the legislation under it see Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 641; Clyatt v. United States, 97 U-. S. 207.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875, provided that the Negro, equally with the white man,- should have accommodation in public places of amusement, hotels, and public conveyances, but this court held in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, that the denial of the social rights attempted to be secured by the act of 1875, as distinguished from the fundamental rights secured by the act of 1866, did not amount to the imposition of a badge of slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment has been considered in some other cases in this court, but an examination of them is not material' to the discussion of this case. Plessy v; Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275.
This court has never held that the Thirteenth Amendment was not broad enough to permit of legislation such as is contained in § 1977, Rev. Stat. We have seen, on the contrary, that Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Justice Harlan have given the support of their opinions to the validity of the parent enactment. Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 90, 91; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 35.
. The validity of the act of April 9, 1866, was' sustained in several-cases in the lower courts of the United Statéé, and in the state courts. United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abb. (U. S.) 28; Matter of Elizabeth Turner, 1 Abb. (U. S.) 84; Smith v. Moody, 26 Indiana, 299, 306; People v. Washington, 36 California, 658; United States v. Cruikshank, 1 Woods, 308, 319.
The act of 1866, was held to be unconstitutional in a dissenting opinion in People v. Washington, supra, and in Bowlin v. Commonwealth, 2 Bush (Ky.), 5.
From the above authorities and extracts from speeches in Congress, the Government contends that the people, having clear notions of the status of the colored race and of what attempts would be made to return- it to its servile condition, intended by the Thirteenth Amendment to grant and secure practical freedom. It outrages our feelings of humanity to believe that the men who had fought to free the slaves merely intended to sever the legal ligament which bound the slave to his master, -leaving the latter at liberty to cut him off from the fundamental rights which white men enjoyed. Such a narrow construction leaves the black race in a state made worse by their emancipation by the breaking of the cord of self-interest which bound the slaveholder to take care of his property. That motive would disappear with the adoption of the Amendment, and the people' must have foreseen that the former slaveholders would strive, by individual action and through the reconstructed legislatures in the late rebellious States, to prevent the frecdmen from acquiring property, suing in the courts, giving evidence, and in a great variety of ways endeavor to prevent those whom they regarded as intended by the Almighty to be bondsmen from enjoying the practical rights of freemen.
For this purpose the people used in the Amendment language which this court has said permits Congress to enact legislation operating directly to punish the acts of individuals, not sanctioned by any color of state authority. Clyait v. United States, 197 TJ. S. 207.
The framers of that Amendment were familiar with the provisions of the Constitution, and with that which gave Congress power “To make all laws which shall be necessary, and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or officer thereof.”
As to what is appropriate legislation, see cases upholding the fugitive slave laws, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539; Ablentan v. Booth, 21 How. 506. And legislation, like § 1977, which declares that the' black and white races shall be upon an equality in the enjoyment of these rights, is apt and appropriate.
The intent of Congress, expressed in sections 1977 and 5508, • is to make it an offense for individuals, acting in combination, to injure or oppress the Negro, solely because of his color, in his right to make and enforce contracts.
If rights are granted and secured by constitutional enactments, Congress may legislate to protect those rights against individual action. United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303; Ex 'parte. Virginia, 100 U. S. 339; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651; United States v. Waddell, 112 U. S. 76; Baldioin v. Franks, 120 U. S. 678; Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263; Motes v. United States, 178 ü. S. 458. ' '
In Clyatt v. United States, 197 IJ. S. 207, it was held that the Thirteenth Amendment, unlike the Fourteenth and Fifteenth, gives Congress authority to enact legislation operating upon individuals, and that the Fourteenth Amendment did not take away from Congress the power to pass legislation operating on individuals.
Scott v. Sand-jord, 10 How. 393, held that slaves-were not citizens. The Emancipation ProclainaiicA maue vhem free, and it'may be admitted, made them ^ the United States, but it did not secure to them practical freedom. That was done by the Thirteenth Amendment, and because, under that Amendment Congress may enact legislation acting primarily upon individuals, it may punish those' who attempt by concerted action to deprive the Negro of his right to contract solely for the reason that he is a Negro. If a conspiracy should be entered into by blacks to hinder a white man, solely on account of his color, from making and enforcing contracts, Congress could legislate for such a case. That question, however, does not arise in this case.
If there be doubt whether the legislation of Congress, § 1977, Rev. Stat., be constitutional, the doubt should be resolved in favor of its validity according, to the rule expressed in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213.
The Civil Righté Cases, 109 U. S. 3, — and see statement of effect of opinion on p. 35 — not only sustains' this case, but it is sustained on the broad ground that there inheres in, and belongs to every man of every race everywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States, all of the essential rights and privileges of a free man, and that the National Government has the right by direct legislation to protect him in the enjoyment of his freedom. •
This case was originally submitted on briefs. By the court’s direction, it has also- been orally argued by the Government. Exigencies of the public welfare have little place in a court of justice in the interpretation of the laws and the Constitution. And yet they have some place. They admonish us to search well all the sources of National power.
It is not legally important that in this or any other State the remedy under the state laws is useless. If that be true, that' consideration can not control the interpretation of the law and the interpretation of the Constitution. The war of races is no longer a sectional war; it is as bitter in the State of Chase and Giddings as it is in the State of Arkansas. If the Negro who is in our midst can be denied the right to work, and must live o.n the outskirts of civilization, he will become more dangerous than the wild beasts, because he has a higher intelligence than the most intelligent beast. He will become an outcast lurking about the borders and living by depredation.
There is but one refuge from that condition, and that is to put himself back under some chosen master in the condition of slavery itself. If the Nation has not the power at the very, threshold to say to those who declare against this or other races, that as a race it shall not have one of the most essential rights of a free man, it is powerless indeed. The Government submits that it has that power. It was given to the Nation, by the Thirteenth Amendment, and this case is brought' within it.
Not the plaintiff in error.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Brewer,
after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
While the indictment was founded on sections 1977 and 5508, we have quoted other sections to show the scope of the legislation of Congress on the general question involved.
That prior to the three post helium Amendments to the Constitution the National Government had no jurisdiction over a wrong like that charged in this indictment is conceded; that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments do not justify the legislation is also .beyond dispute, for they, as repeatedly held, are restrictions upon state action, and no action on the part of the State is complained of. Unless, therefore, the Thirteenth Amendment vests in the Nation the jurisdiction claimed the remedy must be sought through state action and in state tribunals subject to the supervision of this court by writ of error in proper cases.
In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted' from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.
"'The inquiry,' he says, 'is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental; winch belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments; and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by citizens of the several States which compose this union, from the time of their becoming free, independent and sovereign. What these fundamental, principles are, it would be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. The}' may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: protection by the Government, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government may prescribe for the general good of the whole.' "
And after referring to other cases this court added (p. 77):
"It would be the vainest show of learning to attempt to prove by citations of authority, that up to the adoption of the recent Amendments no claim or pretence was set up that those rights depended on- the Federal Government for their existence or protection, beyond the very few express limitations which the Federal Constitution imposed upon the States— such, for instance, as the prohibition against ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts. But with the exception of these and a few other restrictions,- the entire domain of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States, as above defined, lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the States, and without that of the Federal Government." '
Notwithstanding the adoption of these three Amendments, the National Government still remains one of enumerated powers, and the Tenth Amendment, which reads " the powers not délegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," is not shorn of its vitality. True the Thirteenth Amendment grants certain specified and additional power to Congress, but any Congressional legislation directed against individual action which was not warranted before the Thirteenth Amendment must find authority in it. And in interpreting the scope of that Amendment it is well to bear in mind the words of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188, which, though spoken more than four score years ago, are still the rule of construction of constitutional provisions:
"As men whose intentions require no concealment, generally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the ideas they intend to convey, the enlightened patriots 'who framed our Constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said."
The Thirteenth Amendment reads:
"Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
"Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
The .meaning of this is as clear as language can make it. The things denounced are slavery and involuntary servitude, and Congress is given power to enforce that denunciation. All understand by these terms a condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another. {While the inciting cause of the Amendment was the emancipation of the colored race, yet it is not an attempt to commit that race to the care of the Nation. It is the denunciation of a condition-and not a decía- ration in favor of a particular people. It reaches every race and every individual, and if in any respect it commits one race to the Nation i't commits every race and every individual thereof."JSlavery or involuntary servitude of the Chinese, of the Italian, of the Anglo-Saxon are as much within its compass as slavery or involuntary servitude of the African, Of this Amendment it was said by Mr. Justice Miller in Slaughter Home Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 69, "Its-two short sections seem hardly to admit of construction." And again: "To withdraw the mind from the contemplation of this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the human race within the jurisdiction of this Government . . requires an effort, to say the least of it."
A reference to the definitions in the dictionaries of words whose .meaning is so thoroughly understood by all seems an affectation, yet in Webster " slavery" is defined as " the state of entire subjection of one person to the will oh another."- Even the secondary meaning given recognizes the fact of subjection, as "one who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders himself to any power whatever; as a slave to passion, to lust, to strong drink, to ambition," and " servitude " is by the same authority declared to be " the state of voluntary or compulsory subjection to a master."
It is said, however, that one of the disabilities of slavery, one of the indicia of its existence, was a lack of power to make or perform contracts, and that when these defendants, by intimidation and force, compelled the colored men named in the indictment to desist from performing their contract they to that extent reduced those parties to a condition of slavery, that is, of subjection to the will of defendants, and deprived them of a freeman's power to perform his contract. But every wrong done to an individual by another, acting singly or in concert with others, operates pro tanto to abridge some of the freedom to which the individual • is entitled. A freeman has a right to be protected in his person from an assault and battery. He is entitled to hold his property safe from tres pass or'appropriation,jbut no mere personal assault or trespass or appropriation operates to reduce the individual - to a condition of slavery?^ Indeed, this is conceded by counsel for the Government, for in their brief (after referring to certain decisions of this court), it is said:
"With these decisions, 'and many others that might be cited, before us, it is vain to contend' that the Federal Constitution secures to a citizen of the United States the right to work at a given occupation or particular calling free from injury, oppression, or interference by individual citizens."
[('Even though such right be a natural or inalienable right, the duty of protecting the citizen in the enjoyment of such right, free from individual interference, rests alone with the State. )
"Unless, therefore, the additional element, to wit, the infliction of an injury upon one individual citizen by another, solely on account of his color," be sufficient ground to redress such injury the individual citizen suffering such injury must be left for redress of his grievance to the state laws."
The logic of this concession points irresistibly to the contention that the .Thirteenth Amendment operates only to protect the African race. This is evident from the fact that nowhere in the record does it appear that the parties charged to have been wronged by the defendants had ever been themselves slaves, or were the descendants of slaves. They took no more from the Amendment than any other citizens of the United States. But if, as we have seen, that denounces a condition possible for all races and all individuals, then a like wrong perpetrated by white men upon a Chinese, or by black men upon a white man, or by any men upon any man on account of his race, would come-within the jurisdiction of Congress, and that protection of individual eights which prior to the Thirteenth Amendment was unquestionably within the jurisdiction solely of the States, would by virtue of that Amendment be transferred to the Nation, and subject to the legislation of' Congress. .
But that it was not the intent of the Amendilient to denounce every act done to an individual which was wrong if done to a free man and yet justified in a condition of slavery, and to give authority to Congress to enforce such denunciation, consider the legislation in respect to the Chinese. In slave times in the slave States not infrequently every free Negro was required to carry with him a copy of a judicial decree or other evidence of his right to freedom or be subject to arrest. That was one of the incidents or badges of slavery. By the act of May 5, 1892, Congress required all Chinese laborers within the limits of the United States to apply for a certificate, and any one who after one .year from the passage of the act should be found within the jurisdiction of the United States without such certificate, might be arrested and deported. In Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, the validity of the Chinese deportation act was presented, elaborately argued, and fully considered by this court. While there was a division of opinion, yet at no time during the progress of the litigation, and by no individual, counsel, or court connected with it, was it suggested that the requiring of such a certificate was evidence of a condition of slavery, or prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.
One thing more: At the close of the civil Var, when the problem of the emancipated slaves was before the Nation, it might have left them in a condition of alienage, or established them as wards of the Government like the Indian tribes, and thus retained for the Nation jurisdiction over them, or it might, as it did, give them citizenship. . It chose the latter. By the Fourteenth Amendment it made citizens of all born within the limits of the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. By. the Fifteenth it prohibited any State from denying the right of suffrage on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, and by the Thirteenth it forbade slavery or involuntary servitude anywhere within the limits of the land. Whether this was or was not the wiser way to deal with the great problem is not a matter for the courts to consider. It is for us to accept the decision, which declined to 'constitute them wards of the Nation or leave them in a condition of alienage where they would be subject to the jurisdiction of Congress, but gave them citizenship, doubtless believing that thereby in the long run their best interests would be subserved, they taking their chances with other citizens in the States where they should make their homes.
For these reasons we think the United States court had no jurisdiction- of the wrong charged-in the indictment.
The. judgments are reversed, and the case remanded with instructions to sustain the demurrer to the indictment.
Mr. Justice Brown concurs in the judgments.