Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/487

 CHAP. VIII.] CORPORATION AND STATE. [§ 474tf. may be that by proper and just regulations a state can protect itself against objectionable immigrants, and to that end re- quire full information regarding all immigrants ; ' but a state cannot lay a tax on immigrants, however veiled in the form of harbor or quarantine regulations; 2 and a law prescribing terms or conditions on which alone a vessel can discharge its passengers is a regulation of commerce, and is a regulation of commerce with foreign nations if the vessel comes from a foreign port ; it is no argument to call the power to pass such regulations the police power, for a state cannot exercise that power in matters confided exclusively to the jurisdiction of Congress. 3 § 4:7±d. "Commerce on land between the different states is so strikingly dissimilar, in many respects, from commerce by water, that it is often difficult to regard them in the same aspect in reference to the respective constitutional powers and duties of the state and Federal governments. No doubt com- merce by water was principally in the minds of those who framed and adopted the constitution, although both its lan- guage and spirit embrace commerce by land as well." 4 State legislation seeking to impose a direct burden on interstate commerce by land or water, or to interfere directly with its 1 See City of New York v. Miller, 11 Pet. 102. 2 Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283 ; Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259; Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 275; People v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 107 U. S. 59. 3 Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259, 271, 272. See Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196. By examining the cases in the Su- preme Court, in which state legis- lation has been adjudged invalid in regard to the commerce clause, "it will be found that the legislation adjudged invalid imposed a tax upon some instrument or subject of com- merce, or exacted a license fee from parties engaged in commercial pur- suits, or created an impediment to the free navigation of some public waters, or prescribed conditions in accordance with which commerce in particular articles or between par- ticular places was required to be con- ducted. In all the cases, the legis- lation condemned operated directly upon commerce, either by way of tax upon its business, license upon its pursuits in particular channels, or conditions for carrying it on." Sherlock v. Ailing, 93 U. S. 99. Opinion of the court per Field, J., p. 102; as to the power of Congress to pass such laws, see Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580. Wall. 456, 470; Opin. of Ct. per Brad- ley, J. 467
 * Railroad Co. v. Maryland, 21