QUARANTINE LAWS. 273
counterfeiting of trade-marks, is unconstitutional on the same ground.^
Preliminary to the question, what limitations are imposed by the Constitution upon State quarantine laws it is necessary to inquire whether any limitations are imposed by the Constitution upon the police power of the States. The delicacy and importance of this question can hardly be over-estimated. The decisions which afford an answer are comparatively recent ; and while the tide of authority is now only one way, the question cannot perhaps be said to be finally settled. The dignity of the State Governments has been considered to be involved ; and at one period of our national his- tory, the proposition that the police power of a State is limited by the Constitution was contested with bitterness.
Beginning about the year 1820, South Carolina, and, later, other slave States, enacted laws providing that if any vessel should bring into the State "any free negroes or persons of color '* employed on board, such persons should be seized and confined in jail until the vessel was ready to leave. The ship captain was then bound, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, to carry them away and pay the expenses of their imprisonment. The application of these laws to foreign vessels led to diplomatic troubles, the result of which was that the laws ceased in practice to be applied to any vessels except those coming from the Northern States. In a report of the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives 2 in January, 1843, upon a petition of ship- owners and other citizens of Massachusetts, the constitution- ality of these laws was fully discussed. The majority of the committee, in a report presented by Mr. Winthrop, took the position that the laws were unconstitutional regulations of com- merce, as well as in violation of the treaties' of the United States, and of the clause in the Constitution ^ which provides that " the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Colored persons, said the committee, were citizens of Massachusetts nine years be- fore the adoption of the Constitution. It was claimed that the laws in question could not properly be called police regulations. One of the closing resolutions ofifered by the committee waSj
■ Trade-mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82 (1879).
3 27th Congress, House Report No. 80 (Third Session).
« Const., art, iv., sect. 2.
