Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/524

 516 FBDBBAL EBPORTKB. �only parties, and their rights the only rights affected, Had the legislature, instead of prohibiting the corporation from doing business in the state, as a penalty for violation of the conditions prescribed, attempted to enforce compliance by criminally punishing the agent who transferred the action brought against the corporation from the state to the national court, the question would certainly have been different, and the statute making the transfer a misdemeanor would have been void; for, under the constitution of the United States, the foreign corporation had a right to transfer the case, of which the state could not by law, nor the corporation by stipulation, deprive it, as was held in Insurance Company v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445. It being lavrful to transfer, and the right to transfer being secured by the national constitution, it was incompetent for the legislature to make the transfer an offence, and punish it as such, in violation of the supreme law of the land. The act could not at the same time be bofch lawful and criminal. And this is the plain distinction be- tween the case relied on and the one now under considera- tion. �The object, and the only object, to be accomplished by the state constitutional and statutory provisions in question is manifestly to restrict the right of the Chinese residents to labor, and thereby deprive them of the means of living, in order to drive those now here from the state, and prevent others from coming hither ; and this abridges their privileges and immunities, and deprives them of the equal protection of the laws, in direct violation of the treaty and constitution — the supreme law of the land. To perceive that the means employed are admirably adapted to the end proposed, it is only necessary to eonsider for a moment some of the leading provisions of article 19 of the state constitution. Section 1 provides that "the legislature shall prescribe ail necessary regulations for the protection of the state * * * from the burdens and evils arising from the presence of aliens who are or may become vagrants, paupers, mendicants, criminals, etc., • • • and to impose conditions upon which such persons may reside in the state, and to provide the means and ��� �