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Passenger Cases
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Passenger Cases
Smith v. Turner and Norris v. Boston, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 283 (1849), were two similar cases, argued together before the United States Supreme Court, which decided 5–4 that it is unconstitutional for states to impose a tax based on the number of incoming immigrants on board or disembarking from a ship. The cases are also known as the Passenger Case or the Passenger Cases.
The Court did not produce a majority opinion. Eight Justices authored separate opinions, and the respective stances on various issues did not always align with other Justices in their concurrences or dissents. The issues addressed in the various opinions included the following:
The Passenger Cases is of historical interest. It portrays a diversity of views on several constitutional questions, especially whether the Commerce Clause prohibits any state regulation of interstate and foreign commerce in the absence of federal law or treaty. A bitter personal attack on Chief Justice Taney by Justice Wayne also provided a glimpse of the personal dynamics of the fractious court. However, the failure of the court to produce a majority opinion significantly diminished the value of the Passengers Case as formal legal precedent.
In each case, a state imposed a tax to be collected from the master of a ship entering a harbor of that state. In each case, the captain of a British ship challenged the constitutionality of the state law. Other facts varied between the two cases.
The State of New York imposed a tax on the passenger and the crew of each ship entering the Port of New York at the following rates:
The revenues collected would be first directed to cover expenses of a marine hospital to care for those who arrived in a sickened state at the Port of New York. Excess revenues not needed for the maintenance of the marine hospital were redirected to the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents in the City of New York, a charitable organization caring for and confining delinquent boys.
Smith was the master of Henry Bliss, a British ship. It sailed from Liverpool, England, and entered the Port of New York in June 1841. Steerage-class passengers, 295 in number, disembarked in New York City. Smith refused to pay the portion of the New York State tax that was measured by these steerage-class passengers. Turner, the Health Commissioner of the Port of New York, sued Smith for $295 in taxes due under New York State law.
Massachusetts had a law that required an appropriate official to board each ship that had alien passengers on board and had entered one of its port of that State. The official was to examine each alien passenger and determine which of them, if any, were a lunatic, an idiot, maimed, aged, an infirm person, an incompetent, or a current or former pauper or who had been a pauper. Such a passenger would be permitted to disembark only upon the posting of a bond for $1000. Other alien passengers would be permitted to disembark upon the payment of a tax by the master, owner, consignee, or agent of such vessel amounting to the sum of $2.00 for each such passenger so disembarking.
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Passenger Cases
Smith v. Turner and Norris v. Boston, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 283 (1849), were two similar cases, argued together before the United States Supreme Court, which decided 5–4 that it is unconstitutional for states to impose a tax based on the number of incoming immigrants on board or disembarking from a ship. The cases are also known as the Passenger Case or the Passenger Cases.
The Court did not produce a majority opinion. Eight Justices authored separate opinions, and the respective stances on various issues did not always align with other Justices in their concurrences or dissents. The issues addressed in the various opinions included the following:
The Passenger Cases is of historical interest. It portrays a diversity of views on several constitutional questions, especially whether the Commerce Clause prohibits any state regulation of interstate and foreign commerce in the absence of federal law or treaty. A bitter personal attack on Chief Justice Taney by Justice Wayne also provided a glimpse of the personal dynamics of the fractious court. However, the failure of the court to produce a majority opinion significantly diminished the value of the Passengers Case as formal legal precedent.
In each case, a state imposed a tax to be collected from the master of a ship entering a harbor of that state. In each case, the captain of a British ship challenged the constitutionality of the state law. Other facts varied between the two cases.
The State of New York imposed a tax on the passenger and the crew of each ship entering the Port of New York at the following rates:
The revenues collected would be first directed to cover expenses of a marine hospital to care for those who arrived in a sickened state at the Port of New York. Excess revenues not needed for the maintenance of the marine hospital were redirected to the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents in the City of New York, a charitable organization caring for and confining delinquent boys.
Smith was the master of Henry Bliss, a British ship. It sailed from Liverpool, England, and entered the Port of New York in June 1841. Steerage-class passengers, 295 in number, disembarked in New York City. Smith refused to pay the portion of the New York State tax that was measured by these steerage-class passengers. Turner, the Health Commissioner of the Port of New York, sued Smith for $295 in taxes due under New York State law.
Massachusetts had a law that required an appropriate official to board each ship that had alien passengers on board and had entered one of its port of that State. The official was to examine each alien passenger and determine which of them, if any, were a lunatic, an idiot, maimed, aged, an infirm person, an incompetent, or a current or former pauper or who had been a pauper. Such a passenger would be permitted to disembark only upon the posting of a bond for $1000. Other alien passengers would be permitted to disembark upon the payment of a tax by the master, owner, consignee, or agent of such vessel amounting to the sum of $2.00 for each such passenger so disembarking.