Peete v. Morgan

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The Constitution ordains as follows:

'No State shall without the consent of Congress lay any duty on tonnage.

'Congress shall have power to regulate commerce between the States.'

With these provisions of the Constitution in force, the legislature of Texas, by an act of August 13th, 1870, enacted that every vessel arriving at the quarantine station of any town on the coast of Texas, should pay $5 for the first hundred tons, and one and a half cents for each additional ton.

In this state of things Morgan, a citizen of New York-and the owner of two lines of steamers, registered and enrolled in that city, and running from ports in Louisiana to ports in Texas, and back to the ports whence they sailed,-filed a bill in the court below to enjoin one Peete, health officer at the port of Galveston, from the future collection of quarantine fees, exacted under the act abovementioned, from all his vessels coming to the quarantine ground of the said port.

The enactment laying the tax was apparently passed on an assumption that it was justified by the language of this court in Gibbons v. Ogden, and where in speaking of inspection laws, this court say:

'They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation which embraces everything within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the General government, all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike-roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.'

The court below granted a perpetual injunction, and Peete, the health officer, brought the case here on appeal from this decree.

The question was:

Can a State levy a tonnage tax on vessels owned in foreign ports, and entering her harbors in the pursuit of commerce, in order to defray the expenses of her quarantine regulations?

Mr. P. Phillips, for Morgan, the appellee; no counsel appearing for the health officer, Peete, the appellant.

Mr. Justice DAVIS delivered the opinion of the court.