UNITED STATES v. WONG KIM ARK. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1898. [169 United States, 649.]1 APPEAL from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California. A writ of habeas corpus was issued by the District Court to the collector of customs at San Francisco, in behalf of Wong Kim Ark, who, on returning from a visit to China, was by the collector refused permission to land and was restrained of his liberty by the collector and by the steamship company acting under instructions from the collector. At the hearing the United States was per mitted to intervene in opposition to the writ. The court ordered the petitioner discharged (71 Fed. 382); and thereupon the United States appealed to this court and the appellee was admitted to bail. Conrad, Solicitor General, and another, for the appellants; and Maxwell Evarts and others, contra. GRAY, J., . . . delivered the opinion of the court. affic The facts of this case, as agreed by the parties, are as follows: Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in the city of San Francisco, in the State of California and United States of America, and was and is a laborer. His father and mother were persons of Chinese descent, and subjects of the Emperor of China; they were at the time of his birth domiciled residents of the United States, having previously established and still enjoying a permanent domicil and residence therein at San Francisco; they continued to reside and remain in the United States until 1890, when they departed for China; and during all the time of their residence in the United States they were engaged in business, and were never employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China. Wong Kim Ark, ever since his birth, has had but one residence, to wit, in California, within the United States, and has there resided, claiming to be a citizen of the United States, and has never lost or changed that residence, or gained or acquired another residence; and neither he, nor his parents acting for him, ever renounced his allegiance to the United States, or did or committed any act or thing to exclude him therefrom. In 1890 (when he must have been about seventeen years of age) he departed for China on a temporary visit and with the intention of returning to the United States, and did return thereto by sea in the same year, and was 1 The statement has been rewritten. - ED. permitted by the collector of customs to enter the United States, upon the sole ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States. After such return, he remained in the United States, claiming to be a citizen thereof, until 1894, when he (being about twenty-one years of age, but whether a little above or a little under that age does not appear) again departed for China on a temporary visit and with the intention of returning to the United States; and he did return thereto by sea in August, 1895, and applied to the collector of customs for permission to land; and was denied such permission, upon the sole ground that he was not a citizen of the United States. It is conceded that, if he is a citizen of the United States, the acts of Congress, known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race, and especially Chinese laborers, from coming into the United States, do not and cannot apply to him.'. . . The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. . . . It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides seeing that, as said by Mr. Webster, when Secretary of State, in his Report to the President on Thrasher's Case in 1851, and since repeated by this court, "independently of a residence with intention to continue such residence; independently of any domiciliation; independently of the taking of any oath of allegiance or of renouncing any former allegiance, it is well known that, by the public law, an alien, or a stranger born, for so long a time as he continues within the dominions of a foreign government, owes obedience to the laws of 1 The Chinese Exclusion Acts referred to may be found in 22 U. S. Stats. 58; 23 id. 115; 25 id. 476, 504; 27 id. 25; and 28 id. 390. — Ed. that government, and may be punished for treason, or other crimes, as a native-born subject might be, unless his case is varied by some treaty stipulations." Ex. Doc. H. R. No. 10, 1st sess., 32d Congress, p. 4; 6 Webster's Works, 526; United States v. Carlisle, 16 Wall. 147, 155; Calvin's Case, 7 Rep. 6a; Ellesmere on Postnati, 63; 1 Hale P. C. 62; 4 Bl. Com. 74, 92. . . Order affirmed. FULLER, C. J., with whom concurred HARLAN, J., dissenting.... MCKENNA, J., not having been a member of the court when this case was argued took no part in the decision. SECTION II. Privileges and Immunities and Due Process as Related to Procedure.1 DEN ex dem. MURRAY et al. v. HOBOKEN LAND SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1856. [18 Howard, 272.] 2 FROM the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey, upon a certificate of division in opinion. Van Winkle and Wood, for plaintiffs; and Zabrinski and others, contra. CURTIS, J., delivered the opinion of the court. . . . It is an action of ejectment, in which both parties claim title under Samuel Swartwout - the plaintiffs, under the levy of an execution on the 10th day of April, 1839, and the defendants, under a sale made by the marshal of the United States for the district of New Jersey, on the 1st day of June, 1839-by virtue of what is denominated a distress warrant, issued by the solicitor of the treasury under the act of congress of May 15, 1820, entitled, "An act providing for the better organization of the treasury department." This act having provided, by its first section, that a lien for the amount due should exist on the lands of the debtor from the time of the levy and record thereof in the office of the district court of the United States for the proper district, and the date of that levy in this case being prior to the date of the judgment under which the plaintiff's title was made, the question occurred in the circuit court, "whether the said warrant of distress in the special verdict mentioned, and the proceedings thereon and anterior thereto, under which the defendants claim title, are sufficient, under the Constitution of the United States and the law of the land, to pass and transfer the title and estate of the said Swartwout in and to the premises in question, as against the lessors of the plaintiff." Upon this question, the judges being of opposite opinions, it was certified to this court, and has been argued by counsel.ed, yes. 1 Other cases involving this topic may be found elsewhere in this chapter, and particularly in the section on Race Discrimination. — ED. 2 The reporter's statement has been omitted. - ED. a summary" Meland of prosedive travest a bolove against a codedor of revere was No objection has been taken to the warrant on account of any defect or irregularity in the proceedings which preceded its issue. It is not denied that they were in conformity with the requirements of the act of congress. The special verdict finds that Swartwout was collector of the customs for the port of New York for eight years before the 29th of March, 1838: that, on the 10th of November, 1838, his account, as such collector, was audited by the first auditor, and certified by the first comptroller of the treasury; and for the balance thus found, amounting to the sum of $1,374,119 the warrant in question was issued by the solicitor of the treasury. Its validity is denied by the plaintiffs, upon the ground that so much of the act of congress as authorized it, is in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. 65 100 In support of this position, the plaintiff relies on that part of the first section of the third article of the Constitution which requires the judicial power of the United States to be vested in one supreme court and in such inferior courts as congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish; the judges whereof shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. Also, on the second section of the same article, which declares that the judicial power shall extend to controversies to which the United States shall be a party. It must be admitted that, if the auditing of this account, and the ascertainment of its balance, and the issuing of this process, was an exercise of the judicial power of the United States, the proceeding was void; for the officers who performed these acts could exercise no part of that judicial power. They neither constituted a court of the United States, nor were they, or either of them, so connected with any such court as to perform even any of the ministerial duties which arise out of judicial proceedings. The question, whether these acts were an exercise of the judicial power of the United States, can best be considered under another inquiry, raised by the further objection of the plaintiff, that the effect of the proceedings authorized by the act in question is to deprive the party, against whom the warrant issues, of his liberty and property," without due process of law"; and, therefore, is in conflict with the fifth article of the amendments of the Constitution. Taking these two objections together, they raise the questions, whether, under the Constitution of the United States, a collector of the customs, from whom a balance of account has been found to |
