Court Opinion

ID: 9841854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:09:17.031111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:26.774051
License: Public Domain

*259Me. Justice Hablan,
with whom concurred Me. Justice White, dissenting.
I am unable to concur in the opinion and judgment of the court. The grounds of my dissent are these: (1) The railroad company was bound to discharge its duties as a carrier unless relieved therefrom by such quarantine regulations under the laws of Texas as were consistent with the Constitution of the United States.' It could not plead in defence of its action the quarantine regulations adopted by the state sanitary commission and the proclamation of the Governor of that State, if such regulations and proclamation were void under the Constitution of the TÍnited States. (2) The authority of the State to establish quarantine regulations for the protection of the health of its people does not authorize it to create an embargo upon all commerce involved in the transportation of live stock from Louisiana to Texas. The regulations and the Governor’s proclamation upon their face showed the existence of a certain cattle disease in one of the counties of Texas. If under' ány circumstances that fact could be the basis of an embargo 'upon the bringing into Texas from Louisiana .of all live stock during a prescribed period, those circumstances should have appeared from the regulations and the proclamation referred to. On the contrary there does not appear on the face of the transaction any ground whatever for establishing a complete embargo for any given period upon all transportation of live stock from Louisiana to Texas. '
I think therefore that the regulations and proclamation upon which the defendant relied were to be deemed void and therefore inapplicable to the particular transportation referred to in the complaint.
It seems to me that the present case comes within the principles announced in Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259. That case involved-the validity of a statute of New York having for its object the .protection of the people of that State against the immigration of foreign paupers. It was held by this court to be unconstitutional, because “ its practical result was to impose a burden upon all passengers from foreign coun*260tries.” In that case it was said that in whatever language a statute was framed, its purpose must be determined by its natural and reasonable effect. So also in Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 473, we held that a statute of Missouri relating to the bringing into that State of any Texas, Mexican or Indian cattle between certain dates was a plain intrusion upon the exclusive domain of Congress. This court said: “ It is not a quarantine law. It is not an inspection law. It says to all natural persons and to all transportation companies, ‘ You shall not bring into the State any Texas cattle or any Mexican cattle or Indian cattle, between March 1st and December 1st in any year, no matter whether they are free from disease or not, no matter whether they may do an injury to the inhabitants of the State or not; and if you do bring them in, even for the purpose of carrying them through the State without unloading them, you shall be subject to extraordinary liabilities.’ Such a statute, we do not doubt, is beyond the power of a State to enact. To hold otherwise would be to ignore one of the leading objects which the Constitution of the United States was de-' signed to secure.” What was said of the Missouri statute may. be. repeated as to the regulations adopted by the Sanitary Commission and the proclamation of the Governor of Texas forbidding the bringing of cattle into that State from Louisiana. The result in my judgment is, in view of our former decisions, that the quarantine regulations and proclamation in question involved, by their natural and practical operation, an unauthorized obstruction to the freedom of interstate commerce. This must be so, even if the statute of Texas, reasonably interpreted, was itself not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.
Mb.iJustioe White authorizes me to say that he concurs in these views.