United States ex rel. Turner v. Williams/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

194 U.S. 279

United States ex rel. Turner  v.  Williams

 Argued: April 6 and 7, 1904. --- Decided: May 16, 1904

'We regard it assettled by our previous decisions that the United States can, as a matter of public policy, by Congressional enactment, forbid aliens or classes of aliens from coming within their borders, and expel aliens or classes of aliens from their territory, and can, in order to make effectual such decree of exclusion or expulsion, devolve the power and duty of identifying and arresting the persons included in such decree, and causing their deportation, upon executive or subordinate officials.

'But when Congress sees fit tofurther promote such a policy by subjecting the persons of such aliens to infamous punishment at hard labor, or by confiscating their property, we think such legislation, to be valid, must provide for a judicial trial to establish the guilt of the accused. No limits can be put by the courts upon the power of Congress to protect, by summary methods, the country from the advent of aliens whose race or habits render them undesirable as citizens, or to expel such if they have already found their way into our land, and unlawfully remain therein. But to declare unlawful residence within the country to be an infamous crime, punishable by deprivation of liberty and property, would be to pass out of the sphere of constitutional legislation, unless provision were made that the fact of guilt should first be established by a judicial trial. It is not consistent with the theory of our government that the legislature should, after having defined an offense as an infamous crime, find the fact of guilt, and adjudge the punishment, by one of itsown agents.'

Detention or temporary confinement as part of themeans necessary to give effect to the exclusion or expulsion was held valid, but so much of the act of 1892 [27 Stat. at L. 25, chap. 60, U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 1319] as provided for imprisonment at hard labor without a judicial trial was held to be unconstitutional. The cases of Chae Chan Ping, Fong Yue Ting and Lem Moon Sing werecarefully considered and applied.

We do not feel called upon toreconsider these decisions, and they dispose of the specific contentions as to the application of the 5th and 6th Amendments, and § 1 of article 3, and the denial of the delegation to the general government of the power to enact this law. But it is said that the act violates the 1st Amendment, which prohibits the passage of any law 'respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assembly, and to petition thegovernment for a redress of grievances.'

We are at a loss tounderstand in what way the act is obnoxious to this objection. It has no reference to an establishment of religion, nor does it prohibit the free exercise thereof; nor abridge the freedom of speech or of the press; nor the right of the people to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. It is, of course, true, that if an alien is not permitted to enter this country, or, having entered contrary to law, is expelled, he is in fact cut off from worshipping or speaking or publishing or petitioning in the country; but that is merely because of his exclusion therefrom. He does not become one of the people to whom these things are secured by our Constitution by an attempt to enter, forbidden by law. To appeal to the Constitution is to concede that this is a land governed by that supreme law, and as under it the power to exclude has been determined to exist, those who are excluded cannot assert the rights in general obtaining in a land towhich they do not belong as citizens or otherwise.

Appellant'scontention really comes to this: that the act is unconstitutional so far as it provides for the exclusion of an alien because he is ananarchist.

The argument seems to be that, conceding that Congresshas the power to shut out any alien, the power, nevertheless, does not extend to some aliens, and that if the act includes all alien anarchists, it is unconstitutional, because some anarchists are merely political philosophers, whose teachings are beneficial rather thanotherwise.

Counsel give these definitions from the Centurydictionary:

'ANARCHY. Absence or insufficiency of government; astate of society in which there is no capable supreme power, and in which the several functions of the state are performed badly or not at all; social and political confusion. Specifically-2. A social theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct government of man by man as the politicalideal; absolute individual liberty. 3. Confusion in general.

'ANARCHIST. 1. Properly, one who advocates anarchy or the absence of government as a political ideal; a believer in an anarchic theory of society; especially, an adherent of the social theory of Proudhon. See Anarchy, 2. 2. In popular use, one who seeks to overturn by violence all constituted forms and institutions of society and government, all law and order, and all rights of property, with no purpose of establishing any other system of order in the place of that destroyed; especially, such a person when actuated by mere lust of plunder. 3. Any person who promotes disorder or excites revolt againstan established rule, law, or custom.'

And Huxley is quoted assaying: 'Anarchy, as a term of political philosophy, must be taken only in its proper sense, which has nothing to do with disorder or with crime, but denotes a state of society in which the rule of each individual by himself is the only government the legitimacy of which isrecognized.'

The language of the act is 'anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of all government or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officials.' If this should be construed as defining the word 'anarchists' by the words which follow, or as used in the popular sense above given, it would seem that when an alien arrives in this country, who avows himself to be an anarchist, without more, he accepts the definition. And we suppose counsel does not deny that this government has the power to exclude an alien who believes in or advocates the overthrow of the government or of all governments by force or the assassination of officials. To put thatquestion is to answer it.

And if the judgment of the board and the Secretary was that Turner came within the act as thus construed, we cannot hold, as matter of law, that there was no evidence on which that conclusion could be rested. Even if Turner, though he did not so state to the board, only regarded the absence of government as a political ideal, yet when he sought to attain it by advocating, not simply for the benefit of workingmen, who are justly entitled to repel the charge of desiring the destruction of law and order, but 'at any rate, as an anarchist,' the universal strike to which he referred, and by discourses on what he called 'The Legal Murder of 1887' (Spies v. People, 122 Ill. 1, 3 Am. St. Rep. 320, 12 N. E. 865, 17 N. E. 898), and by addressing mass meetings on that subject in association with Most (Queen v. Most, L. R. 7 Q. B. Div. 244; People v. Most, 171 N. Y. 423, 58 L. R. A. 509, 64 N. E. 175), we cannot say that the inference was unjustifiable either that he contemplated the ultimate realization of his ideal by the use of force, or that his speeches wereincitements to that end.

If the word 'anarchists' should beinterpreted as including aliens whose anarchistic views are professed as those of political philosophers, innocent of evil intent, it would follow that Congress was of opinion that the tendency of the general exploitation of such views is so dangerous to the public weal that aliens who hold and advocate them would be undesirable additions to our population, whether permanently or temporarily, whether many or few; and, in the light of previous decisions, the act, even in this aspect, would not be unconstitutional, as applicable to any alien who is opposedto all organized government.

We are not to be understood asdepreciating the vital importance of freedom of speech and of the press, or as suggesting limitations on the spirit of liberty, in itself unconquerable, but this case does not involve those considerations. The flaming brand which guards the realm where no human government is needed still bars the entrance; and as lone as human governments endure they cannot be denied the power of self-preservation, as that question ispresented here.

Reference was made by counsel to the alien law ofJune 25, 1798 (1 Stat. at L. 570, chap. 58), but we do not think that the controversy over that law (and the sedition law) and the opinions expressed at the time against its constitutionality have any bearing upon this case, which involves an act couched in entirely different terms, and embracing an entirely different purpose. As Mr. Justice Field remarked in the Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 610, 32 L. ed. 1077, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 632: 'The act was passed during a period of great political excitement, and it was attacked and defended with great zeal and ability. It is enough, however, to say that it is entirely different from the act before us, and the validity of its provisions was never brought to the test of judicial decision in the courts of the United States.' Order affirmed.

In viewof the range of discussion in the argument of this case at the bar, I feel justified in adding a few words to what has been said by the ChiefJustice.

First. I fully indorse and accentuate the conclusions of the court, as disclosed by the opinion, that, notwithstanding the legislation of Congress, the courts may and must, when properly called upon by petition in habeas corpus examine and determine the right of any individual restrained of his personal liberty to be discharged from such restraint. I do not believe it within the power of Congress to give to ministerial officers of final adjudication of the right to liberty, or to oust the courts from the duty of inquiry respecting both law and facts. 'The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' Const. art. 1, § 9, clause 2.

Second. While undoubtedly the United States as a nation has all the powers which inhere in any nation, Congress is not authorized in all things to act for the nation, and too little effect has been given to the 10th article of the amendments to the Constitution, that 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' The powers the people have given to the general government are named in the Constitution, and all not there named, either expressly or by implication, are reserved to the people, and can be exercised only by them, or upon further grant from them.

Third. No testimony was offered on the hearing before the circuit court other than that taken before the immigration board of inquiry, and none before such board save that preserved in its report. Hence, the facts must be determined by that evidence. It is not an unreasonable deduction therefrom that petitioner is an anarchist in the commonly accepted sense of the term,-one who urges and seeks the overthrow by force of all government. If that be not the fact, he should have introduced testimony to establish the contrary. It is unnecessary, therefore, to consider what rights he would have if he were only what is called, by way of differentiation, a philosophical anarchist,-one who simply entertains and expresses the opinion that all government is a mistake, and that society would be better off without any.

Notes