PART III STATE GOVERNMENT CHAPTER XXII THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF STATE GOVERNMENT 159. Federal Limitations on Ştate Authorities In addition to constructing a system of government endowed with certain powers, the framers of the federal Constitution drew about the states a cordon of restrictions in favor of national interests and private rights, and at the close of the Civil War these limitations were supplemented by amendments of the most fundamental character. Within the sphere of power thus marked out in the Constitution all state authorities must operate under the supervision of the federal judiciary. 1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confedera- Article I, Section 10, tion; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit of the federal bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender Constitution. in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility. 2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States, and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. 3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any From duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public of the federal acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And Constitution. the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. Amend ments to the federal 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the Legislature, or of the executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence. ARTICLE XIII 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, Constitution. shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ARTICLE XIV 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions The general limitations the four teenth amendment. and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article. ARTICLE XV 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article. 160. The Police Power of the State The police power of the state is rightly called "the dark continent" of American constitutional law, because it is the vague and undefinable authority for acting in the name of the public welfare, which the state retains in spite of the restrictions imposed by the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court refuses to establish the limits of this authority in the abstract, but it is constantly deciding whether specific acts of the states are warranted under the police power, or are outside that sphere. The subject is thus discussed by the Court: The Fourteenth Amendment, in declaring that no State "shall imposed by deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" undoubtedly intended not only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediments should be interposed to the pursuits of anyone except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition; and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offences. But neither this Amendment, broad and comprehensive as it is, nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its p lice power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity. From the very necessities of society, legislation of a special character, having these objects in view, must often be had in certain districts, such as for draining marshes and irrigating arid plains. Special burdens are often necessary for general benefits, for supplying water, preventing fires, lighting districts, cleaning streets, opening parks, and many other objects. Regulations for these purposes may press with more or less weight upon one than upon another, but they are designed, not to impose unequal or unnecessary restrictions upon anyone, but to promote, with as little individual inconvenience as possible, the general good. Though, in many respects, necessarily special in their character, they do not furnish just ground of complaint if they operate alike upon all persons and property under the same cir The extent and limits of what is known as the "police power" have been a fruitful subject of discussion in the appellate courts of every State in the Union. It is universally conceded to include everything essential to the public safety, health, and morals, and to justify the destruction or abatement by summary proceedings No amendferes with the police ment inter power. What conexercise of the police stitutes an power. |