QUARANTINE LAWS. 313
and navigation may require, always keeping in mind that the great object of quarantine shall be secured." That Congress has power to assume entire control of the matter of quarantine is taken for granted by the court in Morgan v. Louisiana.^ Indeed, at this time the question seems hardly to admit of doubt.
The principal actual legislation of Congress upon this subject has been as follows r^ The first act upon the subject, approved May 27, 1796, authorized the President "to direct the revenue officers, and the officers commanding forts and revenue-cutters, to aid in the execution of quarantine, and also in the execution of the health laws of the States, respectively, in such manner as may to him appear necessary."^ This was repealed by the Act of February 25, 1799,* preserved in Title LVIII. of the Revised Statutes. This act requires United States revenue and other offi- cers to observe, and, under the direction of the Treasury, to aid in the execution of the health laws of the States. Additional clauses provide specifically for the execution of the United States revenue Jaws in such a manner as not to conflict with State quarantine laws. The Act of April 29, 1878,^ provides that no vessel or vehicle, coming from foreign ports or countries where contagious or infectious diseases may exist, or carrying persons, merchandise, or animals affected with such disease, shall enter any port of the United States, or pass its boundaries with foreign States, contrary to the provisions of the quarantine laws of any State into or through which the vessel or vehicle may pass, and except subject to additional regulations, to be prescribed as the act provides. This language is broad enough to cover quarantines by land as well as by sea. The act also provides for reports by the United States consuls of the sanitary condition of infected ports, and of vessels leaving for the United States having on board passengers or merchandise from districts infected with cholera or yellow fever. The Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service is charged with the duty of framing additonal rules and regulations for the execution of the act not in conflict with the present or future
I118U. 5.455,464(1885)-
- Collected in House Report, No. 392, 43d Cong, ist Session.
« Story's Laws of U. S. 432.
- Story's Laws of U. S. 564, or i U. S. Stat, at Large, 619.
- 20 U. S. Stat, at Large, 37, or i Supplement to Rev. St. of U. S. 313. See, also, ib.
pp. 480, 501, for the acts establishing a national board of health, with advisory powers.
