Court Opinion

ID: 9416936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:58:40.224109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:55.570381
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice FIELD,
concurring:
I concur in the views expressed by Mr. Justice Bradley, but will add a few observations.
I accept the statement made in the opinion of the court, that the act of Iowa of 1860, to which the plea of the defendant refers, was only a revision of the act of 1851, and agree that, for this reason the averment of the ownership of ■the liquor sold prior to the passage of the act o.f 1860 did not answer the charge for which the defendant was prosecuted. I have no doubt of tbe powrnr of the State to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors when such regulation does not amount to the destruction of the right of property in them. The right of property in an article involves the power to sell and .dispose of such article as well as to use and enjoy it. Any act which declares that the owner shall neither sell it nor dispose of it, nor use and enjoy it, confiscates it, depriving him of his property without due process of law. Against such arbitrary legislation by any State the fourteenth amendment affords protection. But the prohibition of sale in any way, or for any use, is quite a different *138thing from a regulation of the sale or use so as to protect the health and morals of the community. All property, even the most harmless in its nature, is equally subject to the power of the State in this respect with the most noxious.
No one has ever pretended, that I am aware of, that the fourteenth amendment interferes in any respect with the police power of the State. Certainly no one who desires to give to that amendment its legitimate operation has ever asserted for it any such effect,. It was not adopted for auy such purpose. The judges who dissented from the.opinion of the majority of the court in the Slaughter-House Gases never contended for ai^ such position. But, on the contrary, they recognized the power of the State in its fullest extent, observing that it embraced all regulations affecting the health, good order, morals, peace, and safety of society, that all sorts of restrictions and burdens were imposed under it, and that when these were not in conflict with any constitutional prohibition or fundamental principles, they could not be successfully assailed iu a judicial tribunal. But they said that under the pretence of prescribing a police regulation the State could not be permitted to encroach upon any of the just rights of the citizen, which the Constitution intended to guard against abridgment; and because, in their opinion, the act of Louisiana, then under consideration, went far beyond the province of a police regulation, and created an oppressive and odious monopoly, thus directly impairing the common rights of the citizens of the State, they dissented from the judgment of the court.
They could not then, and do not now, see anything in the-act which fell under the denomination of a police or sanitary regulation, except the provisions requiring the landing and slaughtering of animals below the city of New Orleans and the inspection of the animals before they were slaughtered; and of these provisions no complaint was made. All else was a mere grant of special and exclusive privileges. And it was incomprehensible to them then, and it is incomprehensible to them now, how, in a district of country nearly as large as the State of Rhode Island, and embracing a pop*139ulation of over two hundred thousand souls, any conditions of health or morals should require that the preparation of animal-food, a prime necessity of life, should be intrusted to a single corporation for twenty-five years; or how in all that vast district, embracing eleven hundred and fifty-four square miles, there could be only one locality and one building in which animals could with safety to the public health be sheltered and slaughtered. And with all the light shed upon the subject by the elaborate opinion of the majority, they do not yet understand that it belongs to the police power of any State to require the owner of animals to give to the butcher a portion of each animal slaughtered. If the State can say the owner shall give the horns and the hoofs, it may say he shall give the hide and the tallow, or any part of the animal. It may say that the butcher shall retain the four quarters and return to the owner only the head and the feet. The owner may require the very portions he is compelled to surrender for his own business — the horns, for example, for the manufacture of combs, and the hoofs for the manufacture of glue, and other portions for equally useful purposes.
It was because the act of Louisiana transcended the limits of police regulation, and asserted a power in the State to farm out the ordinary avocations of life, that dissent was made to the judgment of the court sustaining the validity of the act.
It was believed that the fourteenth amendment had taken away the power of the State to parcel out to-favored citizens the ordinary trades and callings of'life, to give to A. the sole right to bake bread; to B. the sole right to make hats; to C. the sole right to sow grain or plough the fields; and thus at discretion, to grant to some the means of livelihood, and withhold it from others. It was supposed that there were no privileges or immunities of citizens more sacred than those which are involved in the right to “ the pursuit of happiness,” which is usually classed with life and liberty; and that in the pursuit of happiness, since that amendment became part of the fundamental law, every one was free to *140follow any lawful employment without other restraint than such as equally affects all other persons.
Before this amendment and the thirteenth amendment were adopted, the States had supreme authority over all these matters, and the National government, except in a few particulars, could afford no protection to the individual against arbitrary and oppressive legislation. After the civil war had closed, the same authority was asserted, and, in the ’ States recently in insurrection, was exercised to the oppression of the freedmeu; and towards citizens of the North seeking residence there, or citizens resident there who had maintained their loyalty during the war for nationality, a feeling of jealousy and dislike existed which could not fail soon to find expression in discriminating and hostile legislation. It was to prevent the possibility of such legislation in future, and its enforcement' where already adopted, that the fourteenth amendment was directed. It grew out of the feeling that a union which had been maintained by such costly sacrifices was, after all, worthless if a citizen could not be protected in all his fundamental rights everywhere— North and South, East and West — throughout the limits of the Republic. The amendment was not, as held-in the opinion of the majority, primarily intended to confer citizenship on the negro race. It had a much broader purpose; it was intended to justify legislation, extending the protection of the National government over the common .rights of all citizens of the United States, and thus obviate objections to the legislation adopted for the protection of the emancipated race. It was intended to make it possible for all persons, which necessarily included those of every race and color, to live in peace and security wherever the jurisdiction of the nation reached. It, therefore, recognized, if it did not create, a National citizenship, and made all persons citizens except those who preferred to remain under the protection of a foreign government; and declared that their privileges and immunities, which embrace the fundamental rights belonging to citizens of all free governments, should not be abridged by any State. This National citi*141zenship is primary, and not secondary. It clothes its possessor, or would do so if not shorn of its efficiency by construction, with the right, when his privileges and immunities are invaded by partial and discriminating legislation, to appeal from his State to his Nation, and gives him the assurance that, for his protection, he can invoke the whole power of the government.
This case was considered by the court in connection with the Slaughter-House Cases, although its decision has been so long delayed. I have felt, therefore, called upon to point out.the distinction between this case and those eases, and as there has been some apparent misapprehension of the views of the dissenting judges, to restate the grounds of their dissent.
I concur in the judgment in this case.
Judgment affirmed. '