صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

tion of appraisers, as to the dutiable value of goods, shall be conclusive and not re-examinable in a suit at law, provided the appraisers are selected in conformity with the Statute, and, in appraising, act within the scope of the powers conferred upon them."

Sec. 280. In Ekin vs. U. S., 142 U. S. 651, the court said: "And Congress may, if it sees fit, as in the Statute in question in United States vs. Jung Ah Lung, just cited (124 U. S. 621), authorize the courts to investigate and ascertain the facts on which the right to land depends. But, on the other hand, the final determination of those facts may be intrusted by Congress to executive officers; and in such case, as in all others, in which a Statute gives a discretionary power to an officer to be exercised by him upon his own opinion of certain facts, he is made the sole and exclusive judge of the existence of those facts, and no other tribunal, unless expressly authorized by law to do so, is at liberty to re-examine or controvert the sufficiency of the evidence on which he acted. Martin vs. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19; Philadelphia and T. R. Co. vs. Stimpson, 14 Peters, 448; Benson vs. McMahan, 127 U. S. 457; Otriga Y. Cortes vs. Jacobus, 136 U. S. 330.

It is not within the province of the Judiciary to order that foreigners, who have never been naturalized nor acquired any domicile or residence in the United States nor even been admitted into the country pursuant to law, shall be permitted to enter in opposition to the constitutional and lawful measures of the legislative and executive branches. of the National Government. As to such persons, the decisions of the executive or administrative officers acting within the powers expressly conferred by Congress, are due process of law. Murray vs. Hoboken Land and Im. Co., 18 How.. 272; Hetton vs. Merritt, 110 U. S. 97.

It was accordingly held that the decision of an inspector of immigration, in conformity with the Act of March 3, 1891, is final and conclusive against an alien's right to land in the United States and can not be impeached or reviewed in theCourts."

And it was held in Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, that the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are universal in their application to all persons in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States without regard to any difference of race, color or nationality.

Sec. 281. In Fong Yue Ting vs. U. S., 149 U. S. 698, it was held that "the provision in the act of May 5, 1892, that any Chinese laborer found within the United States who had neglected, failed or refused to apply for a certificate of residence within one year after passage of the act, or who, after one year, shall be found in the United States, without such certificate, shall be adjudged and deemed to be unlawfully within the United States, unless he shall establish clearly to the satisfaction of the judge by at least one credible white witness, that he was a resident of the United States at the time of the passage of the act," is within the acknowledged province of every legislature to prescribe the evidence which shall be received and the effect of that evidence in the Courts of its own government. After citing Ogden vs. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213; Pillow vs. Roberts, 13 How. 472; 125 Baskets of Champagne vs. U. S., 3 Wall, 14; Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713; Holmes vs. Hunt, 122 Mass. 505, in support of the above proposition, the Court continues: "The competency of all witnesses, without regard to their color, to testify in the Courts of the United States, rests on Acts of Congress, which Congress may, at its discretion, modify or repeal. Rev. Stat. ss. 858, 1977.

The reason for requiring a Chinese alien to prove the fact of his residence here at the time of the passage of the Act, 'by at least one credible white witness,' may have been the experience of Congress, as mentioned by Mr. Justice Field, in Choe Ping vs. U. S., 'that the enforcement of former acts, under which the testimony of Chinese persons was admitted, to prove similar facts, was attended with great embarrassment fr. m the suspicious nature, in many instances, of the testimony offered to establish the residence of parties, arising from the loose

notions entertained by the witnesses of the obligation of an oath. "

In this same case it was held that the proceeding, before a United States Judge, as provided for in section 6 of the Act of 1892, before whom the burden was on the Chinese laborer to prove his right to remain in this country, by at least one credible white witness or else an order for his deportation could be made by the judge, was in no sense a trial for crime or offense, that the order for deportation was not a punishment for crime, nor a banishment in the sense that word is often applied to the expulsion of a citizen from his own country by way of punishment, and, in case of deportation of the laborer, he was not deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law and that the provisions of the Constitution, securing the right of trial by jury and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishment have no application. On this point, the Court concludes as follows: "The question whether and upon what conditions these persons shall be permitted to remain within the United States being one to be determined by the political departments of the government, the judicial department can not properly express an opinion upon the wisdom, the policy or the justice of the measures enacted by Congress in the exercise of the powers confided to it by the Constitution over this subject." In this case, it appeared that three Chinamen were arrested by the United States Marshal without warrant or other process. Two of them were taken before the United States Judge and, in one case, an order of deportation was made without a hearing or trial and, in the other case, the party showed all the facts, necessary to entitle him to remain here, but not by a credible white witness.

Sec. 282. In Passovant & Co. vs. U. S., 148 U. S. 214, the question being again presented whether the Courts could review the decision of the Board of General Appraisers under the Act of June 10, 1890, as to the dutiable value of imported merchandise, the Court said: "It was certainly competent for Congress to create this Board of General Appraisers, called

*

*
*

'legislative referees' in an early case (Rankin vs. Hoyt, 4 How. 335), and not only invest them with authority to examine and decide upon the valuation of imported goods when that question was properly presented to them but to declare their decision shall be final as to the dutiable value of such merchandise against all parties interested therein. In the tariff legislation of the government Congress has generally adopted means and methods for a speedy and equitable adjustment of the question as to the market value of imported articles without allowing an appeal to the Courts to review the decision reached. If dissatisfied importers, after exhausting the remedies provided by the statute to ascertain and determine the fair dutiable value of imported merchandise, could apply to the Courts to have a review of that subject the prompt and regular collection of the government's revenue would be seriously obstructed and interfered with." To the same effect is Earnshaw vs. U. S., 146 U. S. 60.

In these cases it was also held that the decision of the administrative officers that an article was imported merchandise was final and conclusive on the Courts.

Sec. 283. In Boardman vs. Thompson, 12 Fed. Rep. 675, it was held by Mr. Justice Mathews, and concurred in by Barr, D. J., that the court had no jurisdiction to prohibit by writ of injunction a postmaster from refusing to deliver registered letters and letters containing money orders and other matter sent through the mails, on which has been prepaid the proper postage, to the party, to whom they are directed. The Justice said: "If the alleged right exists to require by judicial process the performance of such duty on the part of a public officer towards a private individual, then it is a legal right, the specific enforcement of which is the proper function of a mandamus or replevin for the recovery of the possession of the articles or an action of damages against the officer. There is no sufficient ground for the interference of equity If, on the other hand, a postmaster is responsible only to his political superior and amenable to the laws only for such breaches of duty as it has provided, as indictment and punish

ment and removal from office, then the present grievance is as much withdrawn from the jurisdiction of a court of equity as from the ordinary council of the common law. It is quite certain that a perpetual injunction in the terms prayed for could not be lawfully granted, for the postmaster might be lawfully required by the Postmaster-General to withhold from delivery correspondence with a named party, believed by him to be engaged in a forbidden business; and an injunction for each instance in which it might be shown that no such prohibition existed would be but an equitable replevin without the justification of preventing a multiplicity of suits."

Sec. 284. These cases go far to show that Congress may constitutionally confer power on the Postmaster-General that is conferred by sections 3929 and 4041, R. S., and the fourth section of the Act of March 2, 1895.

But the direct question of the power of the PostmasterGeneral under these laws has been before the Department of Justice at Washington and before the courts in several cases. Attorney-General Mac Veagh, in an opinion given the Postmaster-General, under date of April 27, 1881 (17 Ops. Att'y-Gen. 77), speaking of the order against Dauphin, used this language:

"The power conferred upon Congress by the eighth section of Article I of the Constitution, 'to establish postoffices and postroads' and to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution that power, gives full sovereign control over the whole subject, to be exercised by any appropriate

means.

The Supreme Court has held the last cited section (Rev. Stat., sec. 3894, amended), excluding from the mails all letters, etc., concerning lotteries, to be constitutional, declaring that 'the power possessed by Congress embraces the regulation of the entire postal system of the country. The right to designate what shall be carried necessarily involves the right to determine what shall be excluded.' (Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 732). * I conclude that if the Postmaster

*

General finds upon evidence satisfactory to him, whatever its

« السابقةمتابعة »