Court Opinion

ID: 9841751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:04:17.965025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:36.882857
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice HaelaN,
with whom concurred Me. Justice Field and Me. Justioe Lamae,
dissenting.
Me. Justice Field, Me. Justice Laaiae and myself are unable to concur in the interpretation placed by the court upon the act of May 6, 1882, passed by Congress in execution of the supplemental treaty with China, concluded on the 17th of November, 1880.
By that treaty the United States were at liberty, notwithstanding the stipulations of the original treaty, to enact laws *636regulating, limiting, or suspending the coming of Chinese laborers to, or their residence in, the United States; such limitation or suspension to be reasonable in its character. It further provided that “ Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teachers, students, merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body and household servants, and Chinese laborers who are now [November 17, 1880] in the United States, shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation.”
The first section of the act of May 6, 1882, 22 Stat. 58, c. 126, suspends the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States from and after the expiration of ninety days next after that date, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of the act; and makes it unlawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or having so come after the expiration of said ninety- days, to remain in this country. The second section makes it an offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for any master of a vessel to knowingly bring any Chinese laborer within the United States on such vessel from any foreign port or place.
■ The third section exempts from the operation of the preceding sections only such Chinese laborers as were in this country on the 17th of November, 1880, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next after May 6, 1882, “ and who shall produce to such master before going on board such vessel, and shall produce to the collector of the port in the United States, at which such vessel shall arrive the evidence hereinafter in this act reqiñred of his being one of the laborers in this section mentioned.”
The fourth section provides for registry books, to be kept by the collector of customs, in which shall be entered a list of all Chinese laborers departing on' any vessel from his district, in which shall be stated the name, age, occupation, last place of residence, physical marks or peculiarities, and all facts necessary for the identification of such laborers. Each Chinese laborer, so departing from the country, after the passage of *637the act of 1882, was entitled to receive, free of charge, upon application therefor, at the time such list is taken, a certificate, showing the above facts, signed by the'collector or his deputy, and attested by his seal of office, in such form as the Secretary 1 of the Treasury shall prescribe. It is important to observe that this statute expressly declares that all this was to be done “for the purpose of properly identifying Chinese laborers who were in the United States on the seventeenth da/y of November, eighteen hundred cmd eighty, or who shall have come into the same before the expiration of ninety days next .after the passage of this act, and in order to furnish them with the prop&r evidence of their right to go from cmd come to the United States of their free will and accord, as provided by the treaty between the United States and China, dated November seventeenth, éighteen hundred and eighty.” Further: “ The certificate herein pro- ‘ vided for shall entitle the Chinese laborer, to whom the same is issued, to return to and reenter the, United States upon prod/acing and delivering the scmie to the collector of customs of the district at which such Chinese laborer shall seek to reenter, and upon delivery of such certificate by such Chinese laborer to the collector of customs at the time of reentry in the United' States, said collector shall cause the same to be filed in the custom-house and duly cancelled.”
The fifth section made provision for a similar certificate to a Chinese laborer of the class mentioned in the fourth section, and who desired to depart from this country “ by land,” to be given by the collector of customs of the district next adjoining the foreign country to which such laborer desires to go.
The twelfth section provides that “ no Chinese person shall he permitted to enter the United States by land, without producing to the proper- officer of customs the certificate in this act required of Chinese persons seeking to land from a vessel,” &c.
In view of these provisions we have been unable to reach any other conclusion than that Congress intended, by the act of 1882, to prohibit the return to this country of any Chinese laborer who was here on the 17th of November, 1880, and who thereafter left the United States, taking with him the certifi*638cate prescribed by that act,' unless he produced such certifícate at the time he sought to reenter. • It is not disputed that such' was the intention of Cóngress with respect to Chinese persons seeking to enter the United States “by land.” Indeed, dispute upon that point is precluded by the express prohibition, in the twelfth section, upon all Chinese persons being permitted to enter this country by land “ without producing to the proper officer of customs the certificate in this act required.” But is there any ground to suppose that Congress intended to prescribe a different or a more stringent rule in relation to Chinese ' laborers entering by land than that prescribed in relation to Chinese laborers entering at one of the ports of the country % If it be said that the registry books kept at the port of departure furnish ample evidence for the identification of Chinese laborers, seeking to enter the country at that port, we answer, (1) that Congress saw fit to exclude from the country all Chinese laborers of the class to which appellee belongs, unless they produced to the collector the certificate issued as evidence of their right to reenter the United States ; (2) that the rule prescribed is, by the very terms of the statute, uniform in its application to all Chinese laborers and to every port of the United States. The Chinese laborer, who received a certificate under the act of 1882, was not bound.to reenter the United States at the port from which he sailed and at which he received that certificate. He could, as we have seen, reenter by land or at any port of the United States, “ upon producing and delivering ” his certificate “ to the collector of customs of the district at which such Chinese laborer shall seek' to reenter.” Now, suppose the petitioner, Jung Ah Lung, had sought to reenter the United States at the port of New York. How could he have been identified at that port as a Chinese laborer, to whom a certificate had been issued by the collector of. customs at San Francisco ? The collector of customs at Néw York would have been without authority to accept affidavits in support of his claim of a right to reenter. It is to be further observed that the act of July 5,1884, 23 Stat. 115, c. 220, provides that section four of the act of 1882 shall be so amended as to read that “said certificate shall be the only *639evidence .permissible to establish his right of reentry.” This did not declare á new rule, but indicates, in language clearer than that' previously used, the intention of Congress in passing the act of 1882.
If appellee’s certificate was forcibly taken from him by a band of pirates, while he. was absent, that is his misfortune. That fact ought not to defeat what was manifestly the intention of the legislative branch of the Government. Congress, in the act of 1882, said, in respect to a Chinese laborer, who was here when the treaty of 1880 was made, and who afterwards left the country, that “the proper evidence” of his right to go and come from the United States was the .certificate he received from the collector of customs, at the time of his departure, and that he should be entitled to reenter “ upon producing and delivering such certificate ” to the collector of customs of the district at which he seeks to reenter; while this court decides that he may reenter the United States, without producing such certificate, and upon satisfactory evidence that he once had it, but was unable to produce it. As by the very terms of the act, a Chinese laborer, who was here on. November 1Y, 1880,.is not excepted from the provision absolutely suspending the coming of all that, class to this country for a given number of years, unless he produces to the collector the certificate issued to him, we cannot assent to the judgment of the court.