master, or commander of a ship or vessel bearing toward any of the
ports or harbors of this State, except coasters in this State, and
between the ports of this State and those of South Carolina, and
between the ports of this State and those of Florida, who refuses to
receive a pilot on board, shall be liable, on his arrival in such port
in this State, to pay the first pilot who may have offered his services
outside the bar, and exhibited his license as a pilot, if demanded by
the master, the full rates of pilotage established by law for such
vessel," conflicts with the Constitution of the United States, and is
annulled and abrogated by the provision in Rev. Stat. § 4237, that
"no regulations or provisions shall be adopted by any State which
shall make any discrimination in the rate of pilotage or half-pilotage
between vessels sailing between the ports of one State and vessels sail-
ing between the ports of different States, or any discrimination against
vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam, or against national ves-
sels of the United States; and all existing regulations or provisions
making any discrimination are annulled and abrogated." Spraigue v.
Thompson, 90.

2. A vessel owned in Philadelphia and running between Philadelphia and
Savannah was licensed as a coastwise steam-vessel. The master held
a license as pilot under Title LII. Rev. Stat. The owners employed
S (a Savannah pilot, also licensed under the laws of the United States
to conduct vessels over Tybee Bar and up the Savannah River), as
their regular pilot to conduct the vessel through those waters, with
pay from the time of leaving Philadelphia. T, licensed as a pilot
under the laws of Georgia, spoke the vessel off Cape Romain, before
any other pilot spoke it, and tendered his services to conduct it
over the bar and up the river, and they were refused. Subsequently
S met the vessel under the general arrangement and piloted it over the
bar and up the river. Held, That pursuant to the provisions of Rev.
Stat. §§ 4401, 4444, the vessel, both when T tendered his services, and
when it passed over the bar and up the river, was under the lawful
control and direction of a pilot licensed under the laws of the United
States, and could not be required to take a pilot licensed under the
provisions of the laws of Georgia. Ib.

3. When the legislature of a State enacts laws for the government of its courts
while exercising their respective jurisdictions, which, if followed, will
furnish parties the necessary constitutional protection of life, liberty,
and property, it has performed its constitutional duty and if one
of its courts, acting within its jurisdiction, makes an erroneous deci-
sion in this respect, the State cannot be deemed guilty of violating the
constitutional provision that no State shall deprive a person of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law. Arrowsmith v. Har-
moning, 194.

4. In a suit brought to this court from a State court, which involves the
constitutionality of ordinances made by a municipal corporation in

this State, this court will, when necessary, put its own independent
construction upon the ordinances. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 356.

5. A municipal ordinance to regulate the carrying on of public laundries
within the limits of the municipality violates the provisions of the
Constitution of the United States, if it confers upon the municipal
authorities arbitrary power, at their own will, and without regard to
discretion in the legal sense of the term, to give or withhold consent
as to persons or places, without regard to the competency of the per-
sons applying, or the propriety of the place selected, for the carrying
on of the business. Ib.

6. An administration of a municipal ordinance for the carrying on of a
lawful business within the corporate limits violates the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States, if it makes arbitrary and unjust
discriminations, founded on differences of race, between persons other-
wise in similar circumstances. Ib.

7. The guarantees of protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution extend to all persons within the territorial jurisdic-
tion of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of
color, or nationality. Ib.

8. Those subjects of the Emperor of China who have the right to tempo-
rarily or permanently reside within the United States, are entitled to
enjoy the protection guaranteed by the Constitution and afforded by
the laws. Ib.

9. The defendant corporations are persons within the intent of the clause
in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Santa Clara County v.
Southern Pacific Railroad, 394.

10. The system of quarantine laws established by statutes of Louisiana is
a rightful exercise of the police power for the protection of health,
which is not forbidden by the Constitution of the United States. Mor-
gan v. Louisiana, 455.

11. While some of the rules of that system may amount to regulations of
commerce with foreign nations or among the States, though not so de-
signed, they belong to that class which the States may establish until
Congress acts in the matter by covering the same ground or forbid-
ding State laws. Ib.

12. Congress, so far from doing either of these things, has, by the act of
1799 (ch. 53, Rev. Stat.) and previous laws, and by the recent act of
1878, 20 Stat. 37, adopted the laws of the States on that subject, and
forbidden all interference with their enforcement. Ib.

13. The requirement that each vessel passing a quarantine station shall pay
a fee fixed by the statute for examination as to her sanitary condition,
and the ports from which she came, is a part of all quarantine systems,
and is a compensation for services rendered to the vessel, and is not a

tax within the meaning of the Constitution concerning tonnage tax
imposed by the States. Ib.

14. Nor is it liable to constitutional objection as giving a preference for a
port of one State over those of another. That section (nine) of the
first article of the Constitution is a restraint upon powers of the gen-
eral government and not of the States, and can have no application
to the quarantine laws of Louisiana. Ib.
15. A statute of Illinois enacts that, if any railroad company shall, within
that State, charge or receive for transporting passengers or freight of
the same class, the same or a greater sum for any distance than it
does for a longer distance, it shall be liable to a penalty for unjust
discrimination. The defendant in this case made such discrimination
in regard to goods transported over the same road or roads from
Peoria in Illinois and from Gilman in Illinois to New York; charging
more for the same class of goods carried from Gilman than from
Peoria, the former being eighty-six miles nearer to New York than
the latter, this difference being in the length of the line within the
State of Illinois. Held, (1.) This court follows the Supreme Court
of Illinois in holding that the statute of Illinois must be construed to
include a transportation of goods under one contract and by one voy-
age from the interior of the State of Illinois to New York. (2.) This
court holds further that such a transportation is "commerce among
the States," even as to that part of the voyage which lies within the
State of Illinois, while it is not denied that there may be a transpor-
tation of goods which is begun and ended within its limits and dis-
connected with any carriage outside of the State, which is not com-
merce among the States. (3.) The latter is subject to regulation by
the State, and the statute of Illinois is valid as applied to it. But the
former is national in its character, and its regulation is confided to
Congress exclusively, by that clause of the Constitution which em-
powers it to regulate commerce among the States. (4.) The cases of
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad
Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; and Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway,
94 U. S. 164, examined in regard to this question, and held, in view
of other cases decided near the same time, not to establish a contrary
doctrine. (5.) Notwithstanding what is there said, this court holds
now, and has never consciously held otherwise, that a statute of a
State, intended to regulate or to tax or to impose any other restric-
tion upon the transmission of persons or property or telegraphic mes-
sage from one State to another, is not within that class of legislation
which the States may enact in the absence of legislation by Congress;
and that such statutes are void even as to that part of such trans-
mission which may be within the State. (6.) It follows that the
statute of Illinois, as construed by the Supreme Court of the State,
and as applied to the transaction under consideration, is forbidden
by the Constitution of the United States, and the judgment of that

court is reversed.
557.

Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway v. Illinois,

See INDIAN, 3, 4, 5.

REMOVAL OF CAUSES, 2.

STATUTE A, 2.

B. OF THE STATES.

See LOCAL LAW, 2, 3, 6.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, 2.

STATUTE, A, 4, 5.

C. GENERALLY.

An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no
duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal
contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.
Norton v. Shelby County, 425.

CONTRACT.

1. H offered to the Secretary of the Navy by letter to construct new boil-
ers for certain vessels of the navy. The offer was accepted at the
Navy Department, by letter, and he was also thereby informed that
the drawings and specifications would be furnished as soon as possi-
ble. A few days later he was notified to discontinue all work con-
tracted for by him with the department. On a suit brought in the
Court of Claims for damages for non-performance of the contract:
Held, That the letters did not constitute a contract with the United
States under the provisions of Rev. Stat. §§ 3744-3749. South Boston
Iron Co. v. United States, 37.

2. When a contract is open to two constructions, the one lawful and the
other unlawful, the former must be adopted. United States v. Central
Pacific Railroad Co., 235.

3. A railroad company, in aid of whose road Congress grants land upon
condition that it shall transport mails at such price as Congress may
direct, and that until the price be thus fixed the Postmaster-General
shall have power to determine the same, is (in the absence of con-
tracts with the department for special service with unusual facilities
or for determined periods) bound to transport mails (until Congress
directs the rates) at such reasonable compensation as the Postmaster-
General may from time to time prescribe; and the continuance by
such company to transport mails after the expiration of the term of a
written contract neither implies that it is, after the Postmaster-
General has otherwise directed, to be paid the same rates for trans-
portation which it was paid under the written contract, nor that the
contract is renewed for any specific term for which contracts of the

Post-office Department may usually be made. Jacksonville, Pensacola,
&c. Railroad v. United States, 626.

See CORPORATION, 2.

CORPORATION.

1. A meeting in one of several States of the stockholders of a corporation
chartered by all those States is valid in respect to the property of the
corporation in all of them, without the necessity of the repetition of
the meeting in any other of those States. Graham v. Boston, Hartford

& Erie Railroad Co., 161.

2. A corporation is responsible for acts done by its agent, whether in con-
tractu or in delicto, in the course of its business and of their employ-
ment, as an individual is responsible under similar circumstances.
Salt Lake City v. Hollister, 256.

3. The distinction pointed out between actions arising on contracts made
by a corporation in excess of its corporate powers, and actions against
corporations for injuries caused by tortious acts done by its agents in
the course of its business and of their employment, in excess of their
powers. Ib.

At a trial by jury in a court of the United States the judge may express
his opinion upon the facts; the expression of such an opinion, when
no rule of law is incorrectly stated, and all matters of fact are ulti-
mately submitted to the determination of the jury, cannot be reviewed
by writ of error; and the powers of the courts of the United States in
this respect are not controlled by State statutes forbidding judges to
express any opinion upon the facts. Vicksburg & Meridian Railroad
v. Putnam, 545.

See PRACTICE, 4.

COURT OF CLAIMS.

See JURISDICTION, D.

COURTS OF TERRITORIES.

See ARIZONA.