The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Part 174

[19] United States _v._ Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 12-13 (1947). Injunctions and "cease and desist" orders in labor disputes have also been repeatedly sustained against charges by labor that the prohibitions of this amendment had been violated. _See_ Auto Workers _v._ Wis. Board, 336 U.S. 245 (1949), in which application of the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act in support of an order forbidding recurrent, intermittent work stoppages for unstated ends was held not to have imposed involuntary servitude. _See also_ Western Union Tel. Co. _v._ International B. of E.

Workers, 2 F. (2d) 993 (1924); International Brotherhood, Etc. _v._ Western U. Tel. Co., 46 F. (2d) 736 (1931), certiorari denied, 284 U.S.

630 (1931).

[20] United States _v._ Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 640 (1883). An act of Congress which penalized a conspiracy to deprive any person of the equal protection of the laws or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws was accordingly held unconst.i.tutional insofar as its validity was made to depend upon the Thirteenth Amendment.

[21] Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 20, 23 (1883).

[22] 14 Stat. 546; 8 U.S.C.A. -- 56; 18 U.S.C.A. -- 1581.

[23] 197 U.S. 207, 218 (1905).

[24] 320 U.S. 527, 529 (1944).

AMENDMENT 14

RIGHTS OF CITIZENS

Page Section 1. Citizens.h.i.+p; privileges and immunities; due process; equal protection 963 Citizens of the United States 963 Kinds and sources of citizens.h.i.+p 963 History 963 Judicial elucidation of the citizens.h.i.+p clause 964 National and State citizens.h.i.+p 965 Corporations 965 Privileges and immunities 965 Purpose and early history of the clause 965 Privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States 967 Privileges held not within the protection of the clause 969 Due process of law clause 971 Historical development 971 Police power: liberty: property 974 Liberty of contract--labor relations 976 Definitions 981 "Persons" defined 981 Due process and the police power 982 Definition 982 Limitations on the police power 982 "Liberty," in general 983 Definitions 983 Personal liberty: compulsory vaccination: s.e.xual sterilization 984 Liberties pertaining to education (of teachers, parents, pupils) 984 Liberties safeguarded by the first eight amendments 985 Liberty of contract (labor relations) 985 In general 985 Laws regulating hours of labor 986 Laws regulating labor in mines 987 Laws prohibiting employment of children in hazardous occupations 987 Laws regulating payment of wages 987 Minimum wage laws 988 Workmen's compensation laws 989 Collective bargaining 991 Regulation of charges; Business affected with a Public Interest 994 History 994 Nebbia _v._ New York 996 Judicial review of publicly determined rates and charges 998 Development 998 Limitations on judicial review 1000 Ben Avon Case 1003 History of the valuation question 1004 Regulation of public utilities (other than rates) 1008 In general 1008 Compulsory expenditures 1009 Grade crossings and other expenditures by railroads 1010 Compellable services 1011 Intercompany railway service 1012 Intercompany discriminatory service charges 1013 Safety regulations applicable to railroads 1014 Liabilities and penalties 1014 Regulation of corporations, business, professions, and trades 1016 Domestic corporations 1016 Foreign corporations 1016 Business in general 1017 Laws prohibiting trusts, discrimination, restraint of trade 1017 Statutes preventing fraud in sale of goods 1018 Blue sky laws; laws regulating boards of trade, etc. 1019 Trading stamps 1019 Banking 1020 Loans, interest, a.s.signments 1020 Insurance 1021 Professions, trades, occupations 1023 Pharmacies 1023 Miscellaneous business, professions, trades, and occupations 1023 Protection of resources of the State 1025 Oil and gas 1025 Protection of property damaged by mining or drilling of wells 1026 Water 1026 Apple and citrus fruit industries 1026 Fish and game 1027 Limitations on owners.h.i.+p 1027 Zoning, building lines, etc. 1027 Safety regulations 1029 Police power 1029 General 1029 Health measures 1030 Protection of water supply 1030 Garbage 1030 Sewers 1030 Food and Drugs, etc. 1030 Milk 1030 Protection of public morals 1031 Gambling and lotteries 1031 Red light districts 1031 Sunday blue laws 1031 Intoxicating liquor 1031 Regulation of motor vehicles and motor carriers 1032 Succession to property 1033 Administration of estates 1034 Abandoned property 1034 Vested rights, remedial rights; political candidacy 1034 Man's best friend 1035 Control of local units of government 1035 Taxation 1036 In general 1036 Public purpose 1036 Other considerations affecting validity: excessive burden; ration of amount to benefit received 1037 Estate, gift and inheritance taxes 1037 Other types of taxes 1036 Income taxes 1036 Franchise taxes 1036 Severance taxes 1036 Real property taxes (a.s.sessment) 1036 Real property taxes (special a.s.sessments) 1040 Jurisdiction to tax 1041 Land 1041 Tangible personalty 1041 Intangible personalty 1042 General 1042 Taxes on intangibles sustained 1042 Taxes on intangibles invalidated 1044 Transfer taxes (inheritance, estate, gift taxes) 1045 Corporation taxes 1049 Intangible personal property 1049 Privilege taxes measured by corporate stock 1050 Privilege taxes measured by gross receipts 1051 Taxes on tangible personal property 1052 Income and other taxes 1053 Individual incomes 1053 Incomes of foreign corporations 1054 Chain store taxes 1055 Insurance company taxes 1055 Procedure in taxation 1056 In general 1056 Notice and hearing in relation to general taxes 1057 Notice and hearing in relation to a.s.sessments 1057 Notice and hearing in relation to special a.s.sessments 1058 Sufficiency and manner of giving notice 1060 Sufficiency of remedy 1060 Laches 1061 Collection of taxes 1061 Eminent Domain 1062 Historical development 1062 Public use 1063 Necessity for a taking 1064 What const.i.tutes a taking for a public use 1064 Just compensation 1066 Uncompensated takings 1067 Consequential damages 1067 Limits to the above rule 1068 Due process in eminent domain 1069 Notice 1069 Hearing 1069 Occupation in advance of condemnation 1070 Due process in civil proceedings 1070 Some general criteria 1070 Ancient usage and uniformity 1070 Equality 1071 Due process and judicial process 1071 Jurisdiction 1072 In general 1072 How perfected: by voluntary appearance or service of process 1072 Service of process in actions in personam: individuals, resident and nonresident 1073 Suits in personam 1075 Suability of foreign corporations 1075 Service of process 1080 Actions in rem--proceedings against land 1080 Actions in rem--attachment proceedings 1081 Actions in rem--corporations, estates, trusts, etc. 1081 Actions in rem--divorce proceedings 1083 Misnomer of defendant--false return, etc. 1083 Notice and hearing 1084 Legislative proceedings 1084 Administrative proceedings 1084 Statutory proceedings 1087 Judicial proceedings 1087 Sufficiency of notice and hearing 1088 Power of States to regulate procedure 1089 Generally 1089 Pleading and practice 1089 Commencement of actions 1089 Pleas in abatement 1090 Defenses 1090 Amendments and continuances 1091 Costs, damages, and penalties 1091 Statutes of limitation 1092 Evidence and presumptions 1093 Jury trials: dispensing with trials 1096 Due process in criminal proceedings 1096 General 1096 Indefinite statutes: right of accused to knowledge of offense 1097 Abolition of the grand jury 1098 Right to counsel 1098 Right to trial by jury 1109 Self-incrimination: forced confessions 1111 Unreasonable searches and seizures 1121 Conviction based on perjured testimony 1124 Confrontation: presence of the accused; public trial 1126 Trial by impartial tribunal 1131 Other attributes of a fair trial 1132 Excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment, sentence 1133 Double jeopardy 1135 Rights of prisoners 1137 Access to the courts 1137 Appeals: corrective process 1137 Due process: miscellaneous 1139 Appeals 1139 Federal review of State procedure 1140 Equal protection of the laws 1141 Definition of terms 1141 What const.i.tutes State action 1141 "Persons" 1142 "Within its jurisdiction" 1143 "Equal protection of the laws" 1144 Legislative cla.s.sifications 1145 Taxation 1146 Cla.s.sifications for the purpose of taxation 1147 Foreign corporations 1149 Income taxes 1150 Inheritance taxes 1150 Motor vehicle taxes 1151 Poll taxes 1152 Property taxes 1152 Special a.s.sessment 1152 Police power 1153 Cla.s.sification 1153 Administrative discretion 1157 Alien laws 1157 Labor relations 1158 Monopolies 1160 Punishment for crime 1160 Segregation 1161 Political rights 1163 Procedure 1165 General doctrine 1165 Access to courts 1166 Corporations 1166 Expenses of litigation 1167 Selection of jury 1167 Section 2. Apportionment of representation 1170 In general 1171 "Indians not taxed" 1171 Right to vote 1172 Reduction of State's representation 1172 Section 3. Disqualification of officers 1173 In general 1173 Section 4. Public debt, etc. 1174 Section 5. Enforcement 1175 Scope of the provision 1175

RIGHTS OF CITIZENS

Amendment 14

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Citizens of the United States

KIND AND SOURCES OF CITIZENs.h.i.+P

There are three categories of persons who, if subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens thereof: (1) those who are born citizens, of whom there are two cla.s.ses, those who are born in the United States and those who are born abroad of American parentage; (2) those who achieve citizens.h.i.+p by qualifying for it in accordance with the naturalization statutes; (3) those who have citizens.h.i.+p thrust upon them, such as the members of certain Indian tribes and the inhabitants of certain dependencies of the United States. In the present connection we are interested in those who are citizens by virtue of birth in the United States.[1]

HISTORY

In the famous Dred Scott Case,[2] Chief Justice Taney had ruled that United States citizens.h.i.+p was enjoyed by two cla.s.ses of individuals: (1) white persons born in the United States as descendants of "persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Const.i.tution recognized as citizens in the several States and [who] became also citizens of this new political body," the United States of America, and (2) those who, having been "born outside the dominions of the United States," had migrated thereto and been naturalized therein. The States were competent, he conceded, to confer State citizens.h.i.+p upon anyone in their midst, but could not make the recipient of such status a citizen of the United States. The Negro, however, according to the Chief Justice, was ineligible to attain United States citizens.h.i.+p either from a State or by virtue of birth in the United States, even as a free man descended from a Negro residing as a free man in one of the States at the date of ratification of the Const.i.tution. That basic doc.u.ment did not contemplate the possibility of Negro citizens.h.i.+p.[3] By the Fourteenth Amendment this deficiency of the original Const.i.tution was cured.[4]

JUDICIAL ELUCIDATION OF THE CITIZENs.h.i.+P CLAUSE

By the decision in 1898 in United States _v._ Wong Kim Ark,[5] all children born in the United States to aliens, even temporary sojourners, if they are not exempt from territorial jurisdiction, are citizens irrespective of race or nationality. But children born in the United States to alien enemies in hostile occupation or to diplomatic representatives of a foreign state, not being "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," i.e., of the United States, are not citizens.[6]

Likewise persons born on a public vessel of a foreign country while within the waters of the United States are not considered as having been born within the jurisdiction of the United States, and hence are not citizens thereof.[7] Conversely, a Chinese born on the high seas aboard an American vessel of Chinese parents residing in the United States was declared not to be a citizen on the ground of not having been born "in the United States."[8] But a child who was born in like circ.u.mstances of parents who were citizens of the United States was declared, shortly before the Civil War, to be a citizen thereof.[9]

NATIONAL AND STATE CITIZENs.h.i.+P

With the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment a distinction between citizens.h.i.+p of the United States and citizens.h.i.+p of a State was clearly recognized and established. "Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union. It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizens.h.i.+p of the United States, and a citizens.h.i.+p of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circ.u.mstances in the individual."[10] National citizens.h.i.+p, although not created by this amendment, was thereby made "paramount and dominant."[11]

CORPORATIONS

Citizens of the United States within the meaning of this article must be natural and not artificial persons; a corporate body is not a citizen of the United States.[12]

Privileges and Immunities

PURPOSE AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE CLAUSE

Unique among const.i.tutional provisions, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enjoys the distinction of having been rendered a "practical nullity" by a single decision of the Supreme Court rendered within five years after its ratification. In the Slaughter-House Cases[13] a bare majority of the Court frustrated the aims of the most aggressive sponsors of this clause, to whom was attributed an intention to centralize "in the hands of the Federal Government large powers. .h.i.therto exercised by the States" with a view to enabling business to develop unimpeded by State interference. This expansive alteration of the Federal System was to have been achieved by converting the rights of the citizens of each State as of the date of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment into privileges and immunities of United States citizens.h.i.+p and thereafter perpetuating this newly defined _status quo_ through judicial condemnation of any State law challenged as "abridging" any one of the latter privileges. To have fostered such intentions, the Court declared, would have been "to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights * * * to the Federal Government, * * * to bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the States," and to "const.i.tute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights, as they existed at the time of the adoption of this amendment * * * [The effect of] so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our inst.i.tutions; * * * is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character; * * * We are convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress * * *, nor by the legislatures * * * which ratified" this amendment, and that the sole "pervading purpose" of this and the other War Amendments was "the freedom of the slave race."

Conformably to these conclusions the Court advised the New Orleans butchers that the Louisiana statute conferring on a single corporation a monopoly of the business of slaughtering cattle abrogated no rights possessed by them as United States citizens and that insofar as that law interfered with their claimed privilege of pursuing the lawful calling of butchering animals, the privilege thus terminated was merely one of "those which belonged to the citizens of the States as such, and" that these had been "left to the State governments for security and protection" and had not been by this clause "placed under the special care of the Federal Government." The only privileges which the latter clause expressly protected against State encroachment were declared to be those "which owe their existence to the Federal Government, its National character, its Const.i.tution, or its laws."--privileges, indeed, which had been available to United States citizens even prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment; and inasmuch as under the principle of federal supremacy no State ever was competent to interfere with their enjoyment, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was thereby reduced to a superfluous reiteration of a prohibition already operative against the States.[14]

PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES

Although the Court has expressed a reluctance to attempt a definitive enumeration of those privileges and immunities of United States citizens such as are protected against State encroachment, it nevertheless felt obliged in the Slaughter-House Cases "to suggest some which owe their existence to the Federal Government, its National character, its Const.i.tution, or its laws." Among those then identified were the following: right of access to the seat of Government, and to the seaports, subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice in the several States; right to demand protection of the Federal Government on the high seas, or abroad; right of a.s.sembly and privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_; right to use the navigable waters of the United States; and rights secured by treaty.[15]

In a later listing in Twining _v._ New Jersey,[16] decided in 1908, the Court recognized "among the rights and privileges" of national citizens.h.i.+p the following: The right to pa.s.s freely from State to State;[17] the right to pet.i.tion Congress for a redress of grievances;[18] the right to vote for national officers;[19] the right to enter public lands;[20] the right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of a United States marshal;[21] and the right to inform the United States authorities of violations of its laws.[22] Earlier in a decision not referred to in the aforementioned enumeration, the Court had also acknowledged that the carrying on of interstate commerce is "a right which every citizen of the United States is ent.i.tled to exercise."[23]

During the past fifteen years this clause has been accorded somewhat uneven treatment by the Court which, on two occasions at least, has manifested a disposition to magnify the restraint which it imposes on State action by enlarging previous enumerations of the privileges protected thereby. In Hague _v._ C.I.O.,[24] decided in 1939, the Court affirmed that freedom to use munic.i.p.al streets and parks for the dissemination of information concerning provisions of a federal statute and to a.s.semble peacefully therein for discussion of the advantages and opportunities offered by such act was a privilege and immunity of a United States citizen. The latter privilege was deemed to have been abridged by city officials who acted in pursuance of a void ordinance which authorized a director of safety to refuse permits for parades or a.s.semblies on streets or parks whenever he believed riots could thereby be avoided and who forcibly evicted from their city union organizers who sought to use the streets and parks for the aforementioned purposes.[25]

Again in Edwards _v._ California,[26] four Justices[27] who concurred in the judgment that a California statute restricting the entry of indigent migrants was unconst.i.tutional preferred to rest their decision on the ground that the act interfered with the right of citizens to move freely from State to State. In thus rejecting the commerce clause, relied on by the majority as the basis for disposing of this case, the minority thereby resurrected an issue first advanced in the old decision of Crandall _v._ Nevada[28] and believed to have been resolved in favor of the commerce clause by Helson and Randolph _v._ Kentucky.[29] Colgate _v._ Harvey,[30] however, which was decided in 1935 and overruled in 1940,[31] represented the first attempt by the Court since adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to convert the privileges and immunities clause into a source of protection of other than those "interests growing out of the relations.h.i.+p between the citizen and the national government."

Here the Court declared that the right of a citizen, resident in one State, to contract in another, to transact any lawful business, or to make a loan of money, in any State other than that in which the citizen resides was a privilege of national citizens.h.i.+p which was abridged by a State income tax law excluding from taxable income interest received on money loaned within the State.[32] Whether or not this overruled precedent is again to be revived and the privileges and immunities clause again placed in readiness for further expansion cannot yet be determined with a.s.surance; but in Oyama _v._ California,[33] decided in 1948, the Court, in a single sentence, affirmed the contention of a native-born youth that California's Alien Land Law, applied so as to work a forfeiture of property purchased in his name with funds advanced by his parent, a j.a.panese alien ineligible to citizens.h.i.+p and precluded from owning land by the terms thereof, deprived him "of his privileges as an American citizen." In none of the previous enumerations has the right to acquire and retain property been set forth as one of the privileges of American citizens.h.i.+p protected against State abridgment; nor is any connection readily discernible between this right and the "relations.h.i.+p between the citizen and the national government." However, the right a.s.serted by Oyama was supported by a "federal statute enacted before the Fourteenth Amendment" which provided that "all citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to * * * purchase, * * * and hold * * * real * * * property."[34]

PRIVILEGES HELD NOT WITHIN THE PROTECTION OF THE CLAUSE

In the following cases State action was upheld against the challenge that it abridged the immunities or privileges of citizens of the United States:

(1) Statute limiting hours of labor in mines.[35]

(2) Statute taxing the business of hiring persons to labor outside the State.[36]

(3) Statute requiring employment of only licensed mine managers and examiners, and imposing liability on the mine owner for failure to furnish a reasonably safe place for workmen.[37]

(4) Statute restricting employment under public works of the State to citizens of the United States, with a preference to citizens of the State.[38]

(5) Statute making railroads liable to employees for injuries caused by negligence of fellow servants, and abolis.h.i.+ng the defense of contributory negligence.[39]

(6) Statute prohibiting a stipulation against liability for negligence in delivery of interstate telegraph messages.[40]

(7) Refusal of State court to license a woman to practice law.[41]