Hall v. De Cuir - 95 U.S. 485 (1877)

Rule:

Uniformity in the regulations by which a carrier of passengers is to be governed from one end to the other of his route is a necessity in his business, and to secure it Congress, which is untrammeled by State lines, has been invested with the exclusive legislative power of determining what such regulations shall be.

Facts:

Benson Hall was the master and owner of the "Governor Allen," a steamboat enrolled and licensed under the laws of the United States for the coasting trade, and plying as a regular packet for the transportation of freight and passengers between New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, and Vicksburg, in the State of Mississippi, touching at the intermediate landings both within and without Louisiana, as occasion required. De Cuir, a person of color, took passage upon the boat, on her trip up the river from New Orleans, for Hermitage, a landing-place within Louisiana, and being refused accommodations, on account of her color, in the cabin specially set apart for white persons, brought this action in the Eighth District Court for the Parish of New Orleans, under the provisions of the act above recited, to recover damages for her mental and physical suffering on that account. Hall, by way of defence, insisted, among other things, that the statute was inoperative and void as to him, in respect to the matter complained of, because, as to his business, it was an attempt to "regulate commerce among the States," and, therefore, in conflict with art. 1, sect. 8, per. 3, of the Constitution of the United States.The District Court of the parish held that the statute made it imperative upon Benson to admit Mrs. DeCuir to the privileges of the cabin for white persons, and that it was not a regulation of commerce among the States, and, therefore, not void. After trial, judgment was given against Benson for $1,000.

Issue:

Is the act of the General Assembly of Louisiana requiring those engaged in the transportation of passengers among the States to give all persons travelling within that State, upon vessels employed in such business, equal riglits and privileges in all parts of the vessel, without distinction on account of race or color constitutional?

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

State legislation which seeks to impose a direct burden upon inter-state commerce, or to interfere directly with its freedom, does encroach upon the exclusive power of Congress. The statute now under consideration, in our opinion, occupied that position. It did not act upon the business through the local instruments to be employed after coming within the State, but directly upon the business as it comes into the State from without or goes out from within. While it purports only to control the carrier when engaged within the State, in must necessarily influence his conduct to some extent in the management of his business throughout his entire voyage. His disposition of passengers taken up and put down within the State, or taken up within to be carried without, cannot but affect in a greater or less degree those taken up without and brought within, and sometimes those taken up and put down without. A passenger in the cabin set apart for the use of whites without the State must, when the boat comes within, share the accommodations of that cabin with such colored persons as may come on board afterwards, if the law is enforced. It was to meet just such a case that the commercial clause in the Constitution was adopted. The river Mississippi passes through or along the borders of ten different States, and its tributaries reach many more. The commerce upon these waters is immense, and its regulation clearly a matter of national concern. If each State was at liberty to regulate the conduct of carriers while within its jurisdiction, the confusion likely to follow could not but be productive of great inconvenience and unnecessary hardship. Each State could provide for its own passengers and regulate the transportation of its own freight, regardless of the interests of others. Nay more, it could prescribe rules by which the carrier must be governed within the State in respect to passengers and property brought from without. On one said of the river or its tributaries he might be required to observe one set of rules, and on the other another. Commerce cannot flourish in the midst of such embarrassments. No carrier of passengers can conduct his business with satisfaction to himself, or comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a State line his passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the same cabin, and on the other be kept separate. If this statute can be enforced against those engaged in inter-state commerce, it may be as well against those engaged in foreign; and the master of a ship clearing from New Orleans for Liverpool, having passengers on board, would be compelled to carry all, white and colored, in the same cabin during his passage down the river, or be subject to an action for damages, "exemplary as well as actual," by anyone who felt himself aggrieved because he had been excluded on account of his color.