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San Francsico's attempt to keep Chinese people out in 1886 (legal
<YICK WO> v. <HOPKINS,> SHERIFF.; WO LEE v. <HOPKINS,>
SHERIFF.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
118 U.S. 356; 30 L. Ed 220; 6 S. Ct. 1064
Submitted April 14, 1886.
<May> 10, 1886 Decided
SYLLABUS:
In a suit brought to this court from a State court which involves the
constitutionality of ordinances made by a municipal corporation in the State,
this court will, when necessary, put its own independent construction upon the
ordinances.
A municipal ordinance to regulate the carrying on of public laundries within the
limits of the municipality violates the provisions of the Constitution of
the United States, if it confers upon the municipal authorities arbitrary power,at
their own will, and without regard to discretion in the legal sense of the
term, to give or withhold consent as to persons or places, without regard to
the competency of the persons applying, or the propriety of the place selected, for
the carrying on of the business.
An administration of a municipal ordinance for the carrying on of a lawful
business within the corporate limits violates the provisions of the Constitution
the United States, if it makes arbitrary and unjust discriminations, founded on
differences of race, between persons otherwise in similar circumstances.
The guarantees of protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution extend to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the
United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of
nationality.
Those subjects of the Emperor of China who have the right to temporarily or
permanently reside within the United States, are entitled to enjoy the
protection guaranteed by the Constitution and afforded by the laws.
APPEAL-STATEMENT:
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF
CALIFORNIA.
These two cases were argued as one and depended upon precisely the same state of
facts; the first coming here upon a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the state of
California, the second on appeal from the Circuit Court of the United
The plaintiff in error, <Yick Wo,> on August 24, 1885, petitioned the Supreme court
of California for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was illegally deprived of
his personal liberty by the defendant as sheriff of the city and
county of San Francisco.
The sheriff made return to the writ that he held the petitioner in custody
by virtue of a sentence of the Police Judges Court, No. 2, of the city and county
of San Francisco, whereby he was found guilty of a violation of certain
ordinances of the board of supervisors of that county, and adjudged to pay a
fine of $10, and, in default of payment, be imprisoned in the county jail at the rate
of one day for each dollar of fine until said fine should be satisfied, and a
commitment in consequence of non-payment of said fine.
The ordinances for the violation of which he had been found guilty were set
out as follows:
Order No. 1569, passed May 26, 1880, prescribing the kind of buildings in
which laundries may be located.
"The people of the city and county of San Francisco do ordain as follows:
"SEC. 1. It shall be unlawful, from and after the passage of this order,
for
corporate limits of the city and county of San Francisco without having first
obtained the consent of the board of supervisors, except the same be located in a
building constructed either of brick or stone.
"SEC. 2. It shall be unlawful for any person to erect, build, or maintain,
or cause to be erected, built, or maintained, over or upon the roof of any
building now erected or which may hereafter be erected within the limits of said city
and county, any scaffolding, without first obtaining the written permission of the board of supervisch permit shall state fully for what purpose
said scaffolding is to be erected and used, and such scaffolding shall not be
used for any other purpose than that designated in such permit.
"SEC. 3. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this order
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be
punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the
county jail not more than six months, or by both such fine and
Order No. 1587, passed July 28, 1880, the following section:
"SEC. 68. It shall be unlawful, from and after the passage of this order,
for any person or persons to establish, maintain, or carry on a laundry within
the corporate limits of the city and county of San Francisco without having
first obtained the consent of the board of supervisors, except the same be
located in a building constructed either of brick or stone."
The following facts were also admitted on the record: That petitioner is a
native of China and came to California in 1861, and is still a subject of the
Emperor of China; that he has been engaged in the laundry business in the same
premises and building for twenty-two years last past; that he had a license from the
board of fire wardens, dated March 3, 1884, from which it appeared "that the above
described premises have been inspected by the board of fire wardens, and
upon such inspection said board found all proper arrangements for carrying on
the business; that the stoves, washing and drying apparatus, and the appliances for
heating smoothing irons are in good condition, and that their use is not
dangerous to the surrounding property from fire, and that all proper precautions have
been taken to comply with the provisions of order No. 1617, defining 'the
fire limits of the city and county of San Francisco and making regulations
concerning the erection and use of buildings in said city and county,' and of
order No. 1670, 'prohibiting the kindling, maintenance, and use of open fires in houses;' that he haificate from the health officer that the same
premises had been inspected by him, and that he found that they were properly
and sufficiently drained, and that all proper arrangements for carrying on the
business of a laundry, without injury to the sanitary condition of the
neighborhood, had been complied with; that the city license of the petitioner
was in force and expired October 1st, 1885; and that the petitioner applied to
the board of supervisors, June 1st, 1885, for consent of said board to maintain and
carry on his laundry, but that said board, on July 1st, 1885, refused said
consent." It is also admitted to be true, as alleged in the petition, that, on
February 24, 1880, "there were about 320 laundries in the city and county of
San francisco, of which about 240 were owned and conducted by subjects of China, and of
the whole number, viz., 320, about 310 were constructed of wood, the same
material that constitutes nine-tenths of the houses in the city of San
Francisco. The capital thus invested by the subjects of China was not less
than two hundred thousand dollars, and they paid annually for rent, license,
taxes, gas, and water about one hundred and eighty thousand dollars."
It was alleged in the petition, that "your petitioner and more than one
hundred and fifty of his countrymen have been arrested upon the charge of
not subjects of China, and who are conducting eighty odd laundries under
similar conditions, are left unmolested and free to enjoy the enhanced trade and
profits arising from this hurtful and unfair discrimination. The business of your
petitioner, and of those of his countrymen similarly situated, is greatly
impaired, and in many cases practically ruined by this system of oppression to
one kind of men and favoritism to all others."
The statement therein contained as to the arrest, &c., was admitted to be
true, with the qualification only, that the eighty odd laundries referred to are in
wooden buildings without scaffolds on the roofs.
In was also admitted "that petitioner and 200 of his countrymen similarly
situated petitioned the board of supervisors for permission to continue their
business in the various houses which they had been occupying and using for
laundries for more than twenty years, and such petitions were denied, and all
the petitions of those who were not Chinese, with one exception of Mrs. Mary
Meagles, were granted."
By section 2 of article XI of the Constitution of California it is provided
that "any county, city, town, or township may make and enforce within its limits all
such local, police, sanitary, and other regulations as are not in conflict
By section 74 of the Act of April 19, 1856, usually known as the
consolidation act, the board of supervisors is empowered, among other things,
"to provide by regulation for the prevention and summary removal of nuisances
to public health, the prevention of contagious diseases; . . . to prohibit the
erection of wooden buildings within any fixed limits where the streets shall
have been established and graded; . . . to regulate the sale, storage, and use
of gunpowder or other explosive or combustible materials and substances, and
make all needful regulations for protection against fire; to make such
regulations concerning the erection and use of buildings as may be necessary for the
safety of the inhabitants."
The Supreme Court of California, in the opinion pronouncing the judgment in
this case, said: "The board of supervisors, under the several statutes
conferring authority upon them, has the power to prohibit or regulate all
occupations which are against good morals, contrary to public order and decency,or
dangerous to the public safety. Clothes washing is certainly not opposed to good
morals or subversive of public order or decency, but when conducted in
the supervisors are made the judges, and, having taken action in the premises,
we do not find that they have prohibited the establishment of laundries, but
that they have, as they well might do, regulated the places at which they should be
established, the character of the buildings in which they are to be
maintained, etc. The process of washing is not prohibited by thus regulating
the places at which and the surroundings by which it must be exercised. The
order No. 1569 and section 68 of order No. 1587 are not in contravention of
common right or unjust, unequal, partial, or oppressive, in such sense as
authorizes us in this proceeding to pronounce them invalid."
After answering the position taken in behalf of the petitioner, that the
ordinances in question had been repealed, the court added: "We have not deemed
it necessary to discuss the question in the light of supposed infringement of
petitioner's rights under the Constitution of the United States, for the reason that
we think the principles upon which contention on that head can be based
have in effect been set at rest by the cases of Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S.
27, and Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703." The writ was accordingly discharged and
the prisoner remanded.
In the other case the appellant, Wo Lee, petitioned for his discharge from
an alleged illegal imprisonment, upon a state of facts shown upon the record,
precisely similar to that in the case of <Yick Wo.> In disposing of the
471, after quoting the ordinance in question, proceeded at length as follows:
"Thus, in a territory some ten miles wide by fifteen or more miles long, much of it
still occupied as mere farming and pasturage lands, and much of it
unoccupied sand banks, in many places without a building within a quarter or
half a mile of each other, including the isolated and almost wholly unoccupied
Goat Island, the right to carry on this, when properly guarded, harmless and
necessary occupation, in a wooden building, is not made to depend upon any
prescribed conditions giving a right to anybody complying with them, but upon
the consent or arbitrary will of the board of supervisors.In three-fourths of
the territory covered by the ordinance there is no more need of prohibiting or
regulating laundries than if they were located in any portion of the farming
regions of the State. Hitherto the regulation of laundries has been limited to the
thickly settled portions of the city. Why this unnecessary extension of
the limits affected, if not designed to prevent the establishment of laundries, after
a compulsory removal from their present locations, within practicable
reach of the customers or their proprietors? And the uncontradicted petition
shows that all Chinese applications are, in fact, denied, and those of
administration of the ordinance, which its terms permit. The fact that the
right to five consent is reserved in the ordinance shows that carrying on the
laundry business in wooden buildings is not deemed of itself necessarily
dangerous. It must be apparent to every well-informed mind that a fire,
properly guarded, for laundry purposes, in a wooden building, is just as
necessary, and no more dangerous, than a fire for cooking purposes or for
warming a house. If the ordinance under consideration is valid, then the board of
supervisors can pass a valid ordinance preventing the maintenance, in a
wooden building, of a cooking stove, heating apparatus, or a restaurant, within the
boundaries of the city and county of San Francisco, without the consent of
that body, arbitrarily given or withheld, as their prejudices or other motives
may dictate. If it is competent for the board of supervisors to pass a valid
ordinance prohibiting the inhabitants of San Francisco from following any
ordinary, proper, and necessary calling within the limits of the city and
county, except at its arbitrary and unregulated discretion and special consent, and
it can do so if this ordinance is valid, then it seems to us that there
has been a wide departure from the principles that have heretofore been supposed to
guard and protect the rights, property, and liberties of the American people.And if,
by an ordinance, general in its terms and form, like the one in
question, by reserving an arbitrary discretion in the enacting body to grant or
against any class can be made in its execution, thereby evading and, in effect,
nullifying the provisions of the National Constitution, then the insertion of
provisions to guard the rights of every class and person in that instrument was a
vain and futile act. The effect of the execution of this ordinance in the
manner indicated in the record would seem to be necessarily to close up the
many chinese laundries now existing, or compel their owners to pull down their
present buildings and reconstruct of brick or stone, or to drive them outside
the city and county of San Francisco, to the adjoining counties, beyond the
convenient reach of customers, either of which results would be little short of
absolute confiscation of the large amount of property shown to be now, and to
have been for a long time, invested in these occupations. If this would not be
depriving such parties of their property without due process of law, it would
be difficult to say what would effect that prohibited result. The necessary
tendency, if not the specific purpose, of this ordinance, and of enforcing it in the
manner indicated in the record, is to drive out of business all the numerous small
laundries, especially those owned by Chinese, and give a monopoly of the
business to the large institutions established and carried on by means of large
associated Caucasian capital. If the facts appearing on the face of the
ordinance, on the petition and return, and admitted in the case, and shown by
the notorious public and municipal history of the times, indicate a purpose to
the public safety, does it not disclose a case of violation of the provisions of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, and of the treaty between the
United States and China, in more than one particular? . . . .If this means
prohibition of the occupation, and destruction of the business and property of
the Chinese laundrymen in San Francisco -- and it seems to us this must be the
effect of executing the ordinance -- and not merely the proper regulation of
the business, then there is discrimination and a violation of other highly
important rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment and the treaty. That it does
mean
prohibition, as to the Chinese, it seems to us must be apparent to every citizen of
San Francisco who has been here long enough to be familiar with the cause of an
active and aggressive branch of public opinion and of public notorious
events. Can a court be blind to what must be necessarily known to every
intelligent person in the State? See As Kow v. Nunan, 5 Sawyer, 552, 560;
Sparrow v. Strong, 3 Wall, 97, 104; Brown v. Piper, 91 U.S. 37, 42."
But, in deference to the decision of the Supreme Court of California in the
case of <Yick Wo,> and contrary to his own opinion as thus expressed, the
circuit judge discharged the writ and remanded the prisoner.
COUNSEL:
Mr. Hall McAllister, Mr. L. H. Van Schaick, and Mr. D. L. Smoot for
Mr. Alfred Clarke and Mr. H. G. Sieberst for defendant in error.
We claim that the city has power to adopt the section we are examining under
article XI, section 11 of the Constitution "to make and enforce all such local
police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with general
laws." The police power of the State does extend to the regulation of this
business by excluding it from certain limits, as shown by In re McClain, 61 Cal.436;
In re Chin Yan, 60 Cal. 78; In re Ah Sing, 59 Cal. 404; The Slaughter-House cases, 16
Wall. 36, 62, et seq.; Ailstock v. Paige, 77 Va. 386; In re Lester, 77Va. 663;
Commonwealth v. Merriam, 136 Mass. 433; Muller v. Commissioners, 89
N.C. 171; State v. Mayor, 15 Vroom (44 N.J. Law), 114; State v. Fay, 15 Vroom
(44 N.J. Law), 474; Commonwealth v. Whelan, 134 Mass. 206; In re Liquor
Locations, 13 R.I. 733; State v. Tarver, 11 Lea, 658.
Under our State constitution, the legislature is prohibited by art. IV., sec.25, sub. 2, from exethe local police power; but the power which is
denied to the legislature is vested by art. XI., sec. 11, in the municipal
corporations throughout the State. In re Stewart, 61 Cal. 374; In re Moynier,
reported; In re Wolters, 65 Cal. 269; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27; Soon
Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703.
The police power is indestructible and inalienable, and being (so far as the
regulation of local matters) denied to the legislature, it must reside in the municipalities. The s people have located this power in the
municipalities, and it is now too late to question its existence. See
observations by Taney, C.J., in Ohio Life Ins. Co. v. Debolt, 16 How. 416, 428.
In addition to the cases heretofore cited, we refer to the following as
recent illustrations of the extent of the police power: Butchers' Union Co. v.
Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746; Foster v. Kansas, 112 U.S. 201; Missouri
Pacific Railway v. Humes, 115 U.S. 512.
Admitting for the sake of argument that the laundry of petitioner was not a
fully developed common-law nuisance, we say the State has power to regulate
it, as was shown in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27. The washing of Mr.
Barbier was not a nuisance, but it was regulated. See also, In re Delaney, 43
Cal. 478.
It has been held that "the State may construe her own laws." Hall v. De Cuir,95
U.S. 504, 515. This is what the State has done. And because some other
taken a different view, it does not follow that the construction by the
California Courts of their laws should be reversed. We do not question the
right of Maryland to make or administer her laws. This decision was presented
to the Supreme Court of California in <Yick Wo,> the case at bar, and our court
declined to follow the Supreme Court of Maryland, and adhered to the contrary
rule which had long been in force in our State. Ought we to disregard the
Supreme Court of California, and follow the Supreme Court of Maryland? Can this court
reverse the Supreme Court of California because it refuses to follow the
Supreme Court of Maryland and adheres to its own decisions? In re Frazer, 54
Cal. 94; In re Johnson, 62 Cal. 263.
No disguise will conceal the fact that there is a conflict of authority
upon the question we are examining, as will be seen on inspection of a few of the
decisions which treat the question at bar.
Decisions restraining the police power of the State. -- (1878). Baltimore
v.Radecke, 49 Maryland, 217; (1882). July, In re Quong Wo, 7 Sawyer, 526, 531.
Decisions asserting the police power of the State. -- (1871), In re Ruth, 32 Iowa,
250; (1871), Whitten v. Covington, 43 Geo. 421; (1872), State v. Court,
State v. Ludington, 33 Wis. 107; (1875), Rohrbacker v. Jackson, 51 Mississippi, 735;
(1876), Kansas Pacific Railroad Co. v. Riley, 16 Kansas, 573; (1879),
Eureka v. Lavis, 21 Kansas, 578; (1881), Pleuler v. State, 11 Neb. 547; (1883), State
v. Brown, 19 Fla. 563.
The Fourteenth Amendment became a part of the Constitution July 28, 1868, and yet
we find the States from that time to this asserting and exercising this
power.
OPINIONBY: MATTHEWS
OPINION:
MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS delivered the opinion of the court.
In the case of the petitioner, brought here by writ of error to the Supreme
Court of California, our jurisdiction is limited to the question, whether the
plaintiff in error has been denied a right in violation of the Constitution,
laws, or treaties of the United States. The question whether his imprisonment
And although that question might have been considered in the Circuit Court in
the application made to it, and by this court on appeal from its order, yet
judicial propriety is best consulted by accepting the judgment of the State
court upon the points involved in that inquiry.
That, however, does not preclude this court from putting upon the ordinances of
the supervisors of the county and city of San Francisco an independent
construction; for the determination of the question whether the proceedings
under these ordinances and in enforcement of them are in conflict with the
Constitution and laws of the United States, necessarily involves the meaning of the
ordinances, which, for that purpose, we are required to ascertain and
adjudge.
We are consequently constrained, at the outset, to differ from the Supreme
Court of California upon the real meaning of the ordinances in question. That
court considered these ordinances as vesting in the board of supervisors a not
unusual discretion in granting or withholding their assent to the use of wooden
buildings as laundries, to be exercised in reference to the circumstances of
each case, with a view to the protection of the public against the dangers of
fire. We are not able to concur in that interpretation of the power conferred
a regulation of the business of keeping and conducting laundries. They seem
intended to confer, and actually do confer, not a discretion to be exercised
upon a consideration of the circumstances of each case, but a naked and
arbitrary power to give or withhold consent, not only as to places, but as to
persons.So that, if an applicant for such consent, being in every way a
competent and qualified person, and having complied with every reasonable
condition demanded by any public interest, should, failing to obtain the
requisite consent of the supervisors to the prosecution of his business, apply
for redress by the judicial process of mandamus, to require the supervisors to
consider and act upon his case, it would be a sufficient answer for them to say that
the law had conferred upon them authority to withhold their assent, without reason and
without responsibility. The power given to them is not confided to
their discretion in the legal sense of that term, but is granted to their mere will.
It is purely arbitrary, and acknowledges neither guidance nor restraint.
This erroneous view of the ordinances in question led the Supreme Court of
California into the further error of holding that they were justified by the
decisions of this court in the cases of Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, and
Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703. In both of these cases the ordinance
public laundries and washhouses, within certain prescribed limits of the city and
county of San Francisco, from ten o'clock at night until six o'clock in the morning
of the following day. This provision was held to be purely a police
regulation, within the competency of any municipality possessed of the ordinary
powers belonging to such bodies; a necessary measure of precaution in a city
composed largely of wooden buildings like San Francisco, in the application of
which there was no invidious discrimination against any one within the
prescribed limits, all persons engaged in the same business being treated alike,and
subject to the same restrictions, and entitled to the same privileges, undersimilar
conditions.
For these reasons, that ordinance was adjudged not to be within the
prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, it was said, in the first case cited, "undoubtedly intended not
only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or
arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security
should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their
personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their
happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like
access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and
contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of any one,
except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no
greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling
and condition; and that in the administration of criminal justice no
different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is
prescribed to all for like offences." "Class legislation, discriminating against some
and favoring others, is prohibited, but legislation which, in carrying out a public
purpose, is limited in its application, if within the sphere of its
operation it affects alike all persons similarly situated, is not within the
amendment."
The ordinance drawn in question in the present case is of a very different
character. It does not prescribe a rule and conditions for the regulation of
the use of property for laundry purposes, to which all similarly situated may
conform. It allows without restriction the use for such purposes of buildings
of brick or stone; but, as to wooden buildings, constituting nearly all those
in previous use, it divides the owners or occupiers into two classes, not
having respect to their personal character and qualifications for the business, nor
the situation and nature and adaptation of the buildings themselves, but merely by
an arbitrary line, on one side of which are those who are permitted to pursue
other those from whom that consent is withheld, at their mere will and pleasure. And
both classes are alike only in this, that they are tenants at will, under the
supervisors, of their means of living. The ordinance, therefore, also differs
from the not unusual case, where discretion is lodged by law in public officers or
bodies to grant or withhold licenses to keep taverns, or places for the sale of
spirituous liquors, and the like, when one of the conditions is that the
applicant shall be a fit person for the exercise of the privilege, because in
such cases the fact of fitness is submitted to the judgment of the officer, and calls
for the exercise of a discretion of a judicial nature.
The rights of the petitioners, as affected by the proceedings of which they
complain, are not less, because they are aliens and subjects of the Emperor of
China.By the third article of the treaty between this Government and that of
China, concluded November 17, 1880, 22 Stat. 827, it is stipulated: "If Chinese
laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either permanently or temporarily
residing in the territory of the United States, meet with ill treatment at the
hands any other persons, the Government of the United States will exert all
its powers to devise measures for their protection, and to secure to them the same
rights, privileges, immunities and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens or
subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled by
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to the
protection of citizens. It says: "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." These provisions are
universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial
jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of
nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of
equal laws. It is accordingly enacted by @ 1977 of the Revised Statutes,
that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the
same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue,
be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and
proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white
citizens and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes,
licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other." The questions we have
to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as
involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the
strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.
It is contended on the part of the petitioners, that the ordinances for
violations of which they are severally sentenced to imprisonment, are void on
in the alternative, if not so, that they are void by reason of their
administration, operating unequally, so as to punish in the present petitioners what
is permitted to others as lawful, without any distinction of circumstances -- an
unjust and illegal discrimination, it is claimed, which, though not made
expressly by the ordinances is made possible by them.
When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government,the
principles upon which they are supposed to rest, and review the history of their
development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for
the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power.
Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and
source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the
agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for
whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and
limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true, that there must always be
lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision;
and in many cases of mere administration the responsibility is purely political,no
appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment,
exercised either in the pressure of opinion or by means of the suffirage. But
considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of
constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of
the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of
just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts Bill
of Rights, the government of the commonwealth "may be a government of laws and
not of men." For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or
the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of
life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where
freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
There are many illustrations that might be given of this truth, which would
make manifest that it was self-evident in the light of our system of
jurisprudence. The case of the political franchise of voting is one. Though
not regarded strictly as a natural right, but as a privilege merely conceded by
society according to its will, under certain conditions, nevertheless it is
regarded as a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights.
In reference to that right, it was declared by the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts, in Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick. 485, 489, in the words of Chief
Justice Shaw, "that in all cases where the constitution has conferred a
political right or privilege, and where the constitution has not particularly
within the just and constitutional limits of the legislative power, to adopt
any reasonable and uniform regulations, in regard to the time and mode of
exercising that right, which are designed to secure and facilitate the exercise of
such
right, in a prompt, orderly, and convenient manner;" nevertheless, "such a
construction would afford no warrant for such an exercise of legislative power, as,
under the pretence and color of regulating, should subvert or injuriously
restrain the right itself." It has accordingly been held generally in the
States, that, whether the particular provisions of an act of legislation,
establishing means for ascertaining the qualifications of those entitled to
vote, and making previous registration in lists of such, a condition precedent
to the exercise of the right, were or were not reasonable regulations, and
accordingly valid or void, was always open to inquiry, as a judicial question.
See Daggett v. Hudson, 1 Western Reporter, 789, decided by the Supreme Court of Ohio, where many of s are collected; Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio St. 665.
The same principle has been more freely extended to the quasi-legislative
acts of inferior municipal bodies, in respect to which it is an ancient
jurisdiction of judicial tribunals to pronounce upon the reasonableness and
consequent validity of their by-laws. In respect to these, it was the
doctrine,
of the
corporation, nor with any statute of Parliament, nor with the general principles of
the common law of the land, particularly those having relation to the liberty of the
subject or the rights of private property. Dillon on Municipal
Corporations, 3d ed., @ 319, and cases cited in notes. Accordingly, in the case of
The State of Ohio ex rel. &c. v. The Cincinnati Gas-Light and Coke Company,
18 Ohio St. 262, 300, an ordinance of the city council purporting to fix the
price to be charged for gas, under an authority of law giving discretionary
power to do so, was held to be bad, if passed in bad faith, fixing an
unreasonable price, for the fraudulent purpose of compelling the gas company
to submit to an unfair appraisement of their works. And a similar question, very
pertinent to the one in the present cases, was decided by the Court of Appeals
of Maryland, in the cases of the City of Baltimore v. Radecke, 49 Maryland, 217.In
that case the defendant had erected and used a steam engine, in the
prosecution of his business as a carpenter and box-maker in the city of
Baltimore, under a permit from the mayor and city council, which contained a
condition that the engine was "to be removed after six months' notice to that
effect from the mayor." After such notice and refusal to conform to it, a suit
was instituted to recover the penalty provided by the ordinance, to restrain
the prosecution of which a bill in equity was filed. The court holding the opinion
that "there may be a case in which an ordinance, passed under grants of power
partial, as to raise the presumption that the legislature never intended to
confer the power to pass it, and to justify the courts in interfering and
setting it aside as a plain abuse of authority," it proceeds to speak, with
regard to the ordinance in question, in relation to the use of steam engines, as follows: "It does nss to prescribe regulations for their construction,
location, or use, nor require such precautions and safeguards to be provided by those
who own and use them as are best calculated to render them less dangerous to life and
property, nor does it restrain their use in box factories and other similar
establishments within certain defined limits, nor in any other way
attempt to promote their safety and security without destroying their
usefulness. But it commits to the unrestrained will of a single public officer the
power to notify every person who now employs a steam engine in the
prosecution of any business in the city of Baltimore, to cease to do so, and,
by providing compulsory fines for every day's disobedience of such notice and order of
removal, renders his power over the use of steam in that city practically
absolute, so that he may prohibit its use altogether. But if he should not
choose to do this, but only to act in particular cases, there is nothing in the
ordinance to guide or control his action. It lays down no rules by which its
impartial execution can be secured or partiality and oppression prevented. It
is clear that giving and enforcing these notices may, and quite likely will,
others, from whom they are withheld, may be actually benefited by what is thus
done to their neighbors; and, when we remember that this action or non-action
may proceed from enmity or prejudice, from partisan zeal or animosity, from
favoritism and other improper influences and motives easy of concealment and
difficult to be detected and exposed, it becomes unnecessary to suggest or to
comment upon the injustice capable of being brought under cover of such a power,for
that becomes apparent to every one who gives to the subject a moment's
consideration. In fact, an ordinance which clothes a single individual with
such power hardly falls within the domain of law, and we are constrained to
pronounce it inoperative and void."
This conclusion, and the reasoning on which it is based, are deductions from the
face of the ordinance, as to its necessary tendency and ultimate actual
operation. In the present cases we are not obliged to reason from the probable to
the actual, and pass upon the validity of the ordinances complained of, as
tried merely by the opportunities which their terms afford, of unequal and
unjust discrimination in their administration. For the cases present the
ordinances in actual operation, and the facts shown establish an administration
directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons as to warrant and
require the conclusion, that, whatever may have been the intent of the
their administration, and thus representing the State itself, with a mind so
unequal and oppressive as to amount to a practical denial by the State of that
equal protection of the laws which is secured to the petitioners, as to all
other persons, by the broad and benign provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States. Though the law itself be fair on its
face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by
public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to
make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar
circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still
within the prohibition of the Constitution. This principle of interpretation
has been sanctioned by this court in Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U.S.
259; Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U.S. 275; Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339; Neal v.
Delaware, 103 U.S. 370; and Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.S. 703.
The present cases, as shown by the facts disclosed in the record, are within this
class.It appears that both petitioners have complied with every
requisite, deemed by the law or by the public officers charged with its
administration, necessary for the protection of neighboring property from fire, or as
a precaution against injury to the public health. No reason whatever,
except the will of the supervisors, is assigned why they should not be permitted
carry on, in the accustomed manner, their harmless and useful occupation, on which
they depend for a livelihood. And while this consent of the supervisors
is withheld from them and from two hundred others who have also petitioned, all of
whom happen to be Chinese subjects, eighty others, not Chinese subjects, are
permitted to carry on the same business under similar conditions. The fact of this discrimination ied. No reason for it is shown, and the conclusion cannot be
resisted, that no reason for it exists except hostility to the race
and nationality to which the petitioners belong, and which in the eye of the lawis
not justified. The discrimination is, therefore, illegal, and the public
administration which enforces it is a denial of the equal protection of the laws and a
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The
imprisonment of the petitioners is, therefore, illegal, and they must be
discharged.To this end,
The judgment of the Supreme Court of California in the case of <Yick Wo,> and that
of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California in the case
of Wo Lee, are severally reversed, and the cases remanded, each to
the proper court, with directions to discharge the petitioners from custody and
imprisonment.
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