Morgan v. Virginia/Opinion of the Court

This appeal brings to this Court the question of the constitutionality of an act of Virginia, which requires all passenger motor vehicle carriers, both interstate and intrastate, to separate without discrimination the white and colored passengers in their otor buses so that contiguous seats will not be occupied by persons of different races at the same time. A violation of the requirement of separation by the carrier is a misdemeanor. The driver or other person in charge is directed and required to increase or decrease the space allotted to the respective races as may be necessary or proper and may require passengers to change their seats to comply with the allocation. The operator's failure to enforce the provisions is made a misdemeanor.

These regulations were applied to an interstate passenger, this appellant, on a motor vehicle then making an interstate run or trip. According to the statement of fact by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, appellant, who is a Negro, was traveling on a motor common carrier, operating under the above-mentioned statute, from Gloucester County, Virginia, through the District of Columbia, to Baltimore, Maryland, the destination of the bus. There were other passengers, both white and colored. On her refusal to accede to a request of the driver to move to a back seat, which was partly occupied by other colored passengers, so as to permit the seat that she vacated to be used by white passengers, a warrant was obtained and appellant was arrested, tried and convicted of a violation of Section 4097dd of the Virginia Code. On a writ of error the conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. 184 Va. 24, 34 S.E.2d 491. The Court of Appeals interpreted the Virginia statute as applicable to appellant since the statute 'embraces all motor vehicles and all passengers, both interstate and intrastate.' The Court of Appeals refused to accept appellant's contention that the statute applied was invalid as a delegation of legislative power to the carrier by a concurrent holding 'that no power is delegated to the carrier to legislate. * *  * The statute itself condemns the defendant's conduct as a violation of law and not the rule of the carrier.' Id., 184 Va. at page 38, 34 S.E.2d at page 497. No complaint is made as to these interpretations of the Virginia statute by the Virginia court.

The errors of the Court of Appeals that are assigned and relied upon by appellant are in form only two. The first is that the decision is repugnant to Clause 3, Section 8, Article I of the Constitution of the United States, and the second the holding that powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment include the power to require an interstate motor passenger to occupy a seat restricted for the use of his race. Actually, the first question alone needs consideration for if the statute unlawfully burdens interstate commerce, the reserved powers of the state will not validate it.

We think, as the Court of Appeals apparently did, that the appellant is a proper person to challenge the validity of this statute as a burden on commerce. If it is an invalid burden, the conviction under it would fail. The statute affects appellant as well as the transportation company. Constitutional protection against burdens on commerce is for her benefit on a criminal trial for violation of the challenged statute. People of State of New York ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U.S. 152, 160, 27 S.Ct. 188, 190, 51 L.Ed. 415, 9 Ann.Cas. 736; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U.S. 450, 463, 65 S.Ct. 1384, 1390, 89 L.Ed. 1725.

This Court frequently must determine the validity of state statutes that are attacked as unconstitutional interferences with the national power over interstate commerce. This appeal presents that question as to a statute that compels racial segregation of interstate passengers in vehicles moving interstate.

The precise degree of a permissible restriction on state power cannot be fixed generally or indeed not even for one kind of state legislation, such as taxation or health or safety. There is a recognized abstract principle, however, that may be taken as a postulate for testing whether particular state legislation in the absence of action by Congress is beyond state power. This is that the state legislation is invalid if it unduly burdens that commerce in matters where uniformity is necessary-necessary in the constitutional sense of useful in accomplishing a permitted purpose. Where uniformity is essential for the functioning of commerce, a state may not interpose its local regulation. Too true it is that the principle lacks in precision. Although the quality of such a principle is abstract, its application to the facts of a situation created by the attempted enforcement of a statute brings about a specific determination as to whether or not the statute in question is a burden on commerce. Within the broad limits of the principle, the cases turn on their own facts.

In the field of transportation, there have been a series of decisions which hold that where Congress has not acted and although the state statute affects interstate commerce, a state may validly enact legislation which has predominantly only a local influence on the course of commerce. It is equally well settled that, even where Congress has not acted, state legislation or a final court order is invalid which materially affects interstate commerce. Because the Constitution puts the ultimate power to regulate commerce in Congress, rather than the states, the degree of state legislation's interference with that commerce may be weighed by federal courts to determine whether the burden makes the statute unconstitutional. The courts could not invalidate federal legislation for the same reason because Congress, within the limits of the Fifth Amendment, has authority to burden commerce if that seems to it a desirable means of accomplishing a permitted end.

This statute is attacked on the ground that it imposes undue burdens on interstate commerce. It is said by the Court of Appeals to have been passed in the exercise of the state's police power to avoid friction between the races. But this Court pointed out years ago 'that a state cannot avoid the operation of this rule by simply invoking the convenient apologetics of the police power.' Burdens upon commerce are those actions of a state which directly 'impair the usefulness of its facilities or such traffic.' That impairment, we think, may arise from other causes than costs or long delays. A burden may arise from a state statute which requires interstate passengers to order their movements on the vehicle in accordance with local rather than national requirements.

On appellant's journey, this statute required that she sit in designated seats in Virginia. Changes in seat designation might be made 'at any time' during the journey when 'necessary or proper for the comfort and convenience of passengers.' This occurred in this instance. Upon such change of designation, the statute authorizes the operator of the vehicle to require, as he did here, 'any passenger to change his or her seat as it may be necessary or proper.' An interstate passenger must if necessary repeatedly shift seats while moving in Virginia to meet the seating requirements of the changing passenger group. On arrival at the District of Columbia line, the appellant would have had freedom to occupy any available seat and so to the end of her journey.

Interstate passengers traveling via motors between the north and south or the east and west may pass through Virginia on through lines in the day or in the night. The large buses approach the comfort of pullmans and have seats convenient for rest. On such interstate journeys the enforcement of the requirements for reseating would be disturbing.

Appellant's argument, properly we think, includes facts bearing on interstate motor transportation beyond those immediately involved in this journey under the Virginia statutory regulations. To appraise the weight of the burden of the Virginia statute on interstate commerce, related statutes of other states are important to show whether there are cumulative effects which may make local regulation impracticable. Eighteen states, it appears, prohibit racial separation on public carriers. Ten require separation on motor carriers. Of these Alabama applies specifically to interstate passengers with an exception for interstate passengers with through tickets from states without laws on separation of passengers. The language of the other acts, like this Virginia statute before the Court of Appeals' decision in this case, may be said to be susceptible to an interpretation that they do or do not apply to interstate passengers.

In states where separation of races is required in motor vehicles, a method of identification as white or colored must be employed. This may be done by definition. Any ascertainable Negro blood identifies a person as colored for purposes of separation in some states. In the other states which require the separation of the races in motor carriers, apparently no definition generally applicable or made for the purposes of the statute is given. Court definition or further legislative enactments would be required to clarify the line between the races. Obviously there may be changes by legislation in the definition.

The interferences to interstate commerce which arise from state regulation of racial association on interstate vehicles has long been recognized. Such regulation hampers freedom of choice in selecting accommodations. The recent changes in transportation brought about by the coming of automobiles does not seem of great significance in the problem. People of all races travel today more extensively than in 1878 when this Court first passed upon state regulation of racial segregation in commerce. The factual situation set out in preceding paragraphs emphasizes the soundness of this Court's early conclusion in Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U.S. 485, 24 L.Ed. 547.

The De Cuir case arose under a statute of Louisiana interpreted by the courts of that state and this Court to require public carriers 'to give all persons travelling in that State, upon the public conveyances employed in such business, equal rights and privileges in all parts of the conveyance, without distinction or discrimination on account of race or color.' 95 U.S. at page 487, 24 L.Ed. 547. Damages were awarded against Hall, the representative of the operator of a Mississippi river steamboat that traversed that river interstate from New Orleans to Vicksburg, for excluding in Louisiana the defendant in error, a colored person, from a cabin reserved for whites. This Court reversed for reasons well stated in the words of Mr. Chief Justice Waite. As our previous discussion demonstrates, the transportation difficulties arising from a statute that requires commingling of the races, as in the De Cuir case, are increased by one that requires separation, as here. Other federal courts have looked upon racial separation statutes as applied to interstate passengers as burdens upon commerce.

In weighing the factors that enter into our conclusion as to whether this statute so burdens interstate commerce or so infringes the requirements of national uniformity as to be invalid, we are mindful of the fact that conditions vary between northern or western states such as Maine or Montana, with practically no colored population; industrial states such as Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania with a small, although appreciable, percentage of colored citizens; and the states of the deep south with percentages of from twenty-five to nearly fifty per cent colored, all with varying densities of the white and colored race in certain localities. Local efforts to promote amicable relations in difficult areas by legislative segregation in interstate transportation emerge from the latter racial distribution. As no state law can reach beyond its own border nor bar transportation of passengers across its boundaries, diverse seating requirements for the races in interstate journeys result. As there is no federal act dealing with the separation of races in interstate transportation, we must decide the validity of this Virginia statute on the challenge that it interferes with commerce, as a matter of balance between the exercise of the local police power and the need for national uniformity in the regulations for interstate travel. It seems clear to us that seating arrangements for the different races in interstate motor travel require a single, uniform rule to promote and protect national travel. Consequently, we hold the Virginia statute in controversy invalid.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE concurs in the result.

Mr. Justice JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice BLACK concurring.

The Commerce Clause of the Constitution provides that 'Congress shall have Power * *  * To regulate Commerce *  *  * among the several States.' I have believed, and still believe that this provision means that Congress can regulate commerce and that the courts cannot. But in a series of cases decided in recent years this Court over my protest has held that the Commerce Clause justifies this Court in nullifying state legislation which this Court concludes imposes an 'undue burden' on interstate commerce. I think that whether state legislation imposes an 'undue burden' on interstate commerce raises pure questions of policy, which the Constitution intended should be resolved by the Congress.

Very recently a majority of this Court reasserted its power to invalidate state laws on the ground that such legislation put an undue burden on commerce. Nippert v. Richmond, supra; Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, supra. I thought then, and still believe, that in these cases the Court was assuming the role of a 'super-legislature' in determining matters of governmental policy. Id., 325 U.S. at page 787, 65 S.Ct. at page 1529, 89 L.Ed. 1915, Note 4.

But the Court, at least for the present, seems committed to this interpretation of the Commerce Clause. In the Southern Pacific Co. case, the Court, as I understand its opinion, found an 'undue burden' because a state's requirement for shorter trains increased the cost of railroad operations and thereby delayed interstate commerce and impaired its efficiency. In the Nippert case a small tax imposed on a sales solicitor employed by concerns located outside of Virginia was found to be an 'undue burden' even though a solicitor for Vi ginia concerns engaged in the same business would have been required to pay the same tax.

So long as the Court remains committed to the 'undue burden on commerce formula,' I must make decisions under it. The 'burden on commerce' imposed by the Virginia law here under consideration seems to me to be of a far more serious nature than those of the Nippert or Southern Pacific Company cases. The Southern Pacific Company opinion, moreover, relied in part on the rule announced in Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U.S. 485, 24 L.Ed. 547, which case held that the Commerce Clause prohibits a state from passing laws which require that 'on one side of a State line * *  * passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the same cabin, and on the other be kept separate.' The Court further said that 'uniformity in the regulations by which (a carrier) is to be governed from one end to the other of his route is a necessity in his business' and that it was the responsibility of Congress, not the states, to determine 'what such regulations shall be.' The 'undue burden on commerce formula' consequently requires the majority's decision. In view of the Court's present disposition to apply that formula, I acquiesce.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER concurring.

My brother Burton has stated with great force reasons for not invalidating the Virginia statute. But for me Hall v. DeCuir, 95 U.S. 485, 24 L.Ed. 547, is controlling. Since it was decided nearly seventy years ago, that case on several occasions has been approvingly cited and has never been questioned. Chiefly for this reason I concur in the opinion of the Court.

The imposition upon national systems of transportation of a crazy-quilt of State laws would operate to burden commerce unreasonably, whether such contradictory and confusing State laws concern racial commingling or racial segregation. This does not imply the necessity for a nationally uniform regulation of arrangements for passengers on interstate carriers. Unlike other powers of Congress (see Art. I, § 8, cl. 1, concerning 'Duties, Imposts and Excises'; Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, concerning 'Naturalization'; Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, concerning 'Bankruptcies'), the power to regulate commerce does not require geographic uniformity. Congress may devise a national policy with due regard to varying interests of different regions. E.g., 37 Stat. 699, 27 U.S.C. § 122, 27 U.S.C.A. § 122; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland R. Co., 242 U.S. 311, 37 S.Ct. 180, 61 L.Ed. 326, L.R.A.1917B, 1218, Ann.Cas.1917B, 845; 45 Stat. 1084, 49 U.S.C. § 60, 49 U.S.C.A. § 60; Whitfield v. Ohio, 297 U.S. 431, 56 S.Ct. 532, 80 L.Ed. 778. The States cannot impose diversity of treatment when such diverse treatment would result in unreasonable burdens on commerce. But Congress may effectively exercise its power under the Commerce Clause without the necessity of a blanket rule for the country.

Mr. Justice BURTON dissenting.