Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/508

 500 FEDEEAL REPORTER, �holder, clerk, agent, servant, attorney, employe, assignee, or contractor of any corporation now existing, or hereafter formed, under the laws of this state, who shall employ, in any manner or capacity, upon any work or business of such corporation, any Chinese or Mongolian, is guilty of a misde- meanor, and is punishable by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail of not less than 50 nor more than 500 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment; provided, that no director of a cor- poration shall be deemed guilty, under this section, wha refuses to assent to such employment, and has such dissent recorded in the minutes of the board of directors. �"1. Every person who, having been convicted for violating the provisions of this section, comraits any subsequent viola- tion thereof after such conviction, is punishable as follows : �"2. For each subsequent conviction, such person shall be fined not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, or by impris- onment not less than 250 days nor more than two years, or by both Buoh fine and imprisonment." �The petitioner is president and director of the Sulphur Bank Quicksilver Mining Company, a corporation organized under the laws of California before the adoption of the pres- ent constitution, but still doing business within the state. Having been arrested and held to answer before the proper state court, upon a complaint duly made, setting oui in due form the offence of employing in the business of said cor- poration certain Chinese oitizens of the Mongolian race, cre- ated by said act, he sued out a writ of habeas corpus, which, having been returned, he asks to be discharged, on the ground that said provisions of the constitution, and act passed in pursuance thereof, are void, aa being adopted and passed in violation of the provisions of the treaty of the United States with the Chinese Empire, commonly called the "Burlingame Treaty," and of the fourteenth amendment to the constitu- tion of the United States, and of the acts of congress passed to give effect to said amendment. The question in this case, therefore, is as to the validity of said constitutional provision and said act. Article 1, § 10, of the constitution of the ��� �