U.S. Supreme Court Wong Wing v. United States, 163
U.S. 228 (1896) Wong Wing v. United
States No. 204 Argued April 1-2,
1896 Decided May 18, 1896 163
U.S. 228 APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF
THE UNITED STATES FOR. THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
MICHIGAN Syllabus Detention or temporary confinement, as part of the means
necessary to give effect to the exclusion or expulsion of Chinese
aliens is valid.

															The United States can forbid aliens from coming within their
borders, and expel them from their territory, and can devolve the
power and duty of identifying and arresting such persons upon
executive or subordinate officials, but when Congress sees fit to
further promote such a policy by subjecting the persons of such
aliens to infamous punishment at hard labor, or by confiscating
their property, such legislation, to be valid, must provide for a
judicial trial to establish the guilt of the accused. Page 163 U. S. 229 On July 15, 1892, Wong Wing, Lee Poy, Lee You Tong, and Chan Wah
Dong were brought before John Graves, a commissioner of the Circuit
Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan by
virtue of a warrant issued upon the complaint of T. E. McDonough,
deputy collector of customs, upon a charge of being Chinese persons
unlawfully within the United States, and not entitled to remain
within the same. The commissioner found that said persons were
unlawfully within the United States, and not entitled to remain
within the same, and he adjudged that they be imprisoned at hard
labor at and in the Detroit House of Correction for a period of
sixty days from and including the day of commitment, and that at
the expiration of said time, they be removed from the United States
to China.

															A writ of habeas corpus was sued out of the circuit court of the
United States, directed to Joseph Nicholson, superintendent of the
Detroit House of Correction, alleging that said persons were by him
unlawfully detained. The superintendent made a return setting up
the action of the commissioner, and, after argument, the writ of
habeas corpus was discharged, and the prisoners were remanded to
the custody of said Nicholson, to serve out their original
sentence. From this decision, an appeal was taken to this
Court.

															MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the court.

															By the thirteenth section of the Act of September 13, 1888, c.
1015, 25 Stat. 479, it was provided as follows:

															"That any Chinese person, or person of Chinese descent found
unlawfully in the United States or its territories may be arrested
upon a warrant issued upon a complaint under oath filed by any
party on behalf of the United States, by any justice, Page 163 U. S. 230 judge, or commissioner of any United States court, returnable
before any justice, judge, or commissioner of a United States
court, or before any United States court, and when convicted, upon
a hearing, and found and adjudged to be one not lawfully entitled
to be or remain in the United States, such person shall be removed
from the United States to the country whence he came."

															The first section of the Act of October 1, 1888, c. 1064, 25
Stat. 504, was in the following terms:

															"That from and after the passage of this act, it shall be
unlawful for any Chinese laborer who shall at any time heretofore
have been, or who may now or hereafter be, a resident within the
United States, and who shall have departed, or shall depart
therefrom, and shall not have returned before the passage of this
act, to return to, or remain in, the United States."

															The validity of these acts was assailed because they were
alleged to be in conflict with existing treaties between the United
States and China, and because to deport a Chinaman who had, under
previous laws, a right to return to the United States was a
punishment which could not be inflicted except by judicial
sentence.

															But these contentions were overruled and the validity of the
legislation sustained by this Court, in the case of Chae Chan
Ping v. United States, 130 U. S. 581 . In
this case, it was held, in an elaborate decision by MR. JUSTICE
FIELD, that the act excluding Chinese laborers from the United
States was a constitutional exercise of legislative power; that, so
far as it conflicted with existing treaties between the United
States and China, it operated to that extent to abrogate them as
part of the municipal law of the United States, and that a right
conferred upon a Chinese laborer, by a certificate issued in
pursuance of previous laws, to return to the United States could be
taken away by a subsequent act of Congress.

															On May 5, 1892, by an act of that date, c. 60, 27 Stat. 25,
Congress enacted that all laws then in force prohibiting and
regulating the coming into this country of Chinese persons and
persons of Chinese descent should be continued in force for a
period of ten years from the passage of the act. The sixth Page 163 U. S. 231 section of the act was, in part, in the following terms:

															"And it shall be the duty of all Chinese laborers within the
limits of the United States at the time of the passage of this act,
and who are entitled to remain in the United States, to apply to
the collector of internal revenue of their respective districts,
within one year after the passage of this act, for a certificate of
residence, and any Chinese laborer, within the limits of the United
States, who shall neglect, fail, or refuse to comply with the
provisions of this act or who, after one year from the passage
hereof, shall be found within the jurisdiction of the United States
without such certificate of residence shall be deemed and adjudged
to be unlawfully within the United States, and may be arrested by
any United States customs official, collector of internal revenue
or his deputies, United States marshal or his deputies, and taken
before a United States judge, whose duty it shall be to order that
he be deported from the United States as hereinbefore
provided."

															As against the validity of this section it was contended that
whatever might be true as to the power of the United States to
exclude aliens, yet there was no power to banish such aliens who
had been permitted to become residents, and that if such power did
exist, it was in the nature of a punishment, and could only be
lawfully exercised after a judicial trial.

															But this Court held, in the case of Fong Yue Ting v. United
States, 149 U. S. 698 ,
that the right to exclude or to expel aliens, or any class of
aliens, absolutely or upon certain conditions, in war or in peace,
is an inherent and inalienable right of every sovereign and
independent nation; that the power of Congress to expel, like the
power to exclude, aliens or any class of aliens from the country
may be exercised entirely through executive officers, and that the
said sixth section of the Act of May 5, 1892, was constitutional
and valid.

															The Act of August 18, 1894, c. 301, 28 Stat. 390, made provision
for expenses of returning to China all Chinese persons found to be
unlawfully in the United States, including the cost of imprisonment
and actual expense of conveyance of Chinese persons to the frontier
or seaboard for deportation, Page 163 U. S. 232 and contained the following enactment:

															"In every case where an alien is excluded from admission into
the United States under any law or treaty now existing or hereafter
made, the decision of the appropriate immigration or customs
officers, if adverse to the admission of such alien, shall be final
unless reversed on appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury."

															One Lem Moon Sing, a person of the Chinese race who claimed to
have had a permanent domicile in the United States and to have
carried on business therein as a merchant before the passage of the
Act of August 18, 1894, and to have gone on a temporary visit to
his native land, with the intention of returning and continuing his
residence in the United States (during which temporary absence the
said act was passed) was, on his return, prevented from landing,
and was confined and restrained of his liberty by the collector of
the port of San Francisco. He filed in the District Court of the
United States for the Northern District of California a petition
for a writ of habeas corpus wherein he alleged that he had not been
apprehended and was not detained by virtue of the judgment, order,
decree, or other judicial process of any court, or under any writ
or warrant, but under the authority alleged to have been given to
the collector of the port of San Francisco by the Act of August 18,
1894, and that his detention was without jurisdiction and without
due process of law and against his rights under the Constitution
and laws of the United States. The writ of habeas corpus was denied
by the court below, and from this judgment an appeal was prosecuted
to this Court.

															The contention on behalf of the appellant in the case was thus
stated by MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, who delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															"The contention is that while, generally speaking, immigration
officers have jurisdiction under the statute to exclude an alien
who is not entitled under some treaty or statute to come into the
United States, yet if the alien is entitled of right by some law or
treaty to enter this country, but is nevertheless excluded by such
officers, the latter exceed their jurisdiction, and their alleged
action, if it results in restraining Page 163 U. S. 233 the alien of his liberty, presents a judicial question, for the
decision of which the courts may intervene upon a writ of habeas
corpus."

															In considering this position, the Court said:

															"That view, if sustained, would bring into the courts every case
of an alien who claimed the right to come into the United States
under some law or treaty, but was prevented from doing so by the
executive branch of the government. This would defeat the manifest
purpose of Congress in committing to subordinate immigration
officers and to the Secretary of the Treasury exclusive authority
to determine whether a particular alien seeking admission into this
country belongs to the class entitled by some law or treaty to come
into the country, or to a class forbidden to enter the United
States. Under that interpretation of the act of 1894, the provision
that the decision of the appropriate immigration or customs
officers should be final, unless reversed on appeal to the
Secretary of the Treasury, would be of no practical value."

															"The power of Congress to exclude aliens altogether from the
United States, or to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which
they may come to this country, and to have its declared policy in
that regard enforced exclusively through executive officers,
without judicial intervention, is settled by our previous
adjudications."

															Accordingly, the judgment of the court below denying the
application for the writ of habeas corpus was affirmed. Lem
Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538 .

															The present appeal presents a different question from those
heretofore determined. It is claimed that even if it be competent
for Congress to prevent aliens from coming into the country, or to
provide for the deportation of those unlawfully within its borders,
and to submit the enforcement of the provisions of such laws to
executive officers, yet the fourth section of the act of 1892,
which provides that

															"any such Chinese person, or person of Chinese descent,
convicted and adjudged to be not lawfully entitled to be or remain
in the United States, shall be imprisoned at hard labor for a
period not exceeding one year, and thereafter removed from the
United Page 163 U. S. 234 States,"

															inflicts an infamous punishment, and hence conflicts with the
fifth and sixth amendments of the Constitution, which declare that
no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise
infamous crime unless on a presentment of indictment of a grand
jury, and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy
the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the
state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.

															It is argued that as this Court has held, in Ex Parte
Wilson, 114 U. S. 417 , and
in Mackin v. United States, 117 U.
S. 348 , that no person can be held to answer, without
presentment or indictment by a grand jury, for any crime for which
an infamous punishment may be imposed by the court, and that
imprisonment at hard labor for a term of years is an infamous
punishment, the detention of the present appellants in the House of
Correction at Detroit at hard labor for a period of 60 days without
having been sentenced thereto upon an indictment by a grand jury
and a trial by a jury is illegal and without jurisdiction.

															On the other hand, it is contended on behalf of the government
that it has never been decided by this Court that in all cases
where the punishment may be confinement at hard labor, the crime is
infamous, and many cases are cited from the reports of the state
supreme courts where the constitutionality of statutes providing
for summary proceedings, without a jury trial, for the punishment
by imprisonment at hard labor of vagrants and disorderly persons,
had been upheld. These courts have held that the constitutional
guaranties refer to such crimes and misdemeanors as have, by the
regular course of the law, and the established modes of procedure,
been the subject of trial by jury, and that they do not embrace
every species of accusation involving penal consequences. It is
urged that the offense of being and remaining unlawfully within the
limits of the United States by an alien is a political offense, and
is not within the common law cases triable only by a jury, and that
the Constitution does not apply to such a case.

															The Chinese Exclusion Acts operate upon two classes -- one Page 163 U. S. 235 consisting of those who came into the country with its consent,
the other of those who have come into the United States without
their consent, and in disregard of the law. Our previous decisions
have settled that it is within the constitutional power of Congress
to deport both of these classes, and to commit the enforcement of
the law to executive officers.

															The question now presented is whether Congress can promote its
policy in respect to Chinese persons by adding to its provisions
for their exclusion and expulsion punishment by imprisonment at
hard labor, to be inflicted by the judgment of any justice, judge,
or commissioner of the United States without a trial by jury. In
other words, we have to consider the meaning and validity of the
fourth section of the Act of May 5, 1892, in the following
words:

															"That any such Chinese person or person of Chinese descent,
convicted and adjudged to be not lawfully entitled to be and remain
in the United States, shall be imprisoned at hard labor for a
period of not exceeding one year, and thereafter removed from the
United States, as hereinbefore provided."

															We think it clear that detention or temporary confinement, as
part of the means necessary to give effect to the provisions for
the exclusion or expulsion of aliens, would be valid. Proceedings
to exclude or expel would be vain if those accused could not be
held in custody pending the inquiry into their true character, and
while arrangements were being made for their deportation. Detention
is a usual feature in every case of arrest on a criminal charge,
even when an innocent person a wrongfully accused, but it is not
imprisonment in a legal sense.

															So too, we think it would be plainly competent for Congress to
declare the act of an alien in remaining unlawfully within the
United States to be an offense punishable by fine or imprisonment
if such offense were to be established by a judicial trial.

															But the evident meaning of the section in question -- and no
other is claimed for it by the counsel for the government -- is
that the detention provided for is an imprisonment at hard labor,
which is to be undergone before the sentence of deportation Page 163 U. S. 236 is to be carried into effect, and that such imprisonment is to
be adjudged against the accused by a justice, judge, or
commissioner, upon a summary hearing. Thus construed, the fourth
section comes before this Court for the first time for
consideration as to its validity.

															It is indeed obvious from some expressions used by the Court in
a previous opinion under the exclusion acts that it was perceived
that the question now presented might arise; but care was taken to
reserve any expression of opinion upon it. Thus, in the case of Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149
U. S. 730 , MR. JUSTICE GRAY used the following
significant language:

															"The proceeding before a United States judge, as provided for in
section 6 of the act of 1892, is in no proper sense a trial and
sentence for a crime or offense. It is simply the ascertainment, by
appropriate and lawful means, of the fact whether the conditions
exist upon which Congress has enacted that an alien of this class
may remain within the country. The order of deportation is not a
punishment for crime. It is not a 'banishment,' in the sense in
which that word is often applied to the expulsion of a citizen from
his country by way of punishment. It is but a method of enforcing
the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with
the conditions upon the performance of which the government of the
nation, acting within its constitutional authority and through the
proper departments, has determined that his continuing to reside
here shall depend. He has not, therefore, been deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process or law, and the provisions
of the Constitution securing the right of trial by jury and
prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and
unusual punishments have no application."

															There is an evident implication in this language of a
distinction between those provisions of the statute which
contemplate only the exclusion or expulsion of Chinese persons and
those which provide for their imprisonment at hard labor, pending
which their deportation is suspended.

															Our views upon the question thus specifically pressed upon Page 163 U. S. 237 our attention may be briefly expressed thus: we regard it as
settled 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 to further 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 its own
agents.

															In Ex Parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 428 ,
this Court declared that, for more than a century, imprisonment at
hard labor in the state prison or penitentiary or other similar
institution has been considered an infamous punishment in England
and America, and that imprisonment at hard labor, compulsory and
unpaid, is, in the strongest sense of the words, "involuntary
servitude for crime," spoken of in the provision of the ordinance
of 1787 and of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, by
which all other slavery was abolished, and which declares Page 163 U. S. 238 that such slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist
within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted.

															And in the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118
U. S. 369 , it was said:

															"The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to
the protection of citizens. It says:"

															" 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 law."

															"These provisions are universal in their application to all
persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any
differences of race, of color, or nationality, and the equal
protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal
laws."

															Applying this reasoning to the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, it
must be concluded that all persons within the territory of the
United States are entitled to the protection guarantied by those
amendments, and that even aliens shall not be held to answer for a
capital or other infamous crime unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law.

															Our conclusion is that the commissioner, in sentencing the
appellants to imprisonment at hard labor at and in the Detroit
House of Correction, acted without jurisdiction, and that the
circuit court erred in not discharging the prisoners from such
imprisonment without prejudice to their detention according to law
for deportation. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the cause
remanded to that court, with directions to proceed therein in
accordance with this opinion. MR. JUSTICE FIELD, concurring in part and dissenting in
part.

															The majority of the Justices in this case hold that whatever
might be true as to the power of the United States to exclude
aliens, yet there was no power to punish such aliens who had been
permitted to become residents, and that if such power did exist, it
could only be lawfully exercised after a Page 163 U. S. 239 judicial trial, and therefore that the accused were entitled to
be discharged from their arrest and imprisonment. To that extent,
their opinion is concurred in.

															But I do not concur, but dissent entirely, from what seemed to
me to be harsh and illegal assertions made by counsel of the
government on the argument of this case as to the right of the
court to deny to the accused the full protection of the law and
Constitution against every form of oppression and cruelty to
them.

															Wong Wing, one of the petitioners on proceedings to be released
from the alleged unlawful imprisonment, is a subject of the Chinese
government, with which the government of the United States has
relations of peace and amity. This Chinaman and three other persons
of the same race and country were, in the month of July, 1892,
found within the City of Detroit, in the Eastern District of
Michigan, and upon the complaint of the deputy collector of customs
at that place made to a United States circuit court commissioner
for that district that they were unlawfully within the limits of
the United States, a warrant for their arrest was issued by the
commissioner, and they were accordingly arrested and taken before
him for inquiry into the correctness of the charge.

															Upon examination before the commissioner upon the charge, it was
held by him that the Chinese persons named were unlawfully within
the United States, and his judgment was that they should be
imprisoned at hard labor in the House of Correction at Detroit, in
the Eastern District of Michigan, for a period of sixty days from
and including that date, and that at the expiration of that period,
they should be removed from the United States to China.

															The Chinese thus arrested and committed immediately applied to
the judges of the United States court for the Eastern District of
Michigan for a writ of habeas corpus, to be released from their
imprisonment and restraint of their liberty, alleging that the same
were unlawful, without warrant of law, and contrary to the
Constitution and laws of the United States, and that they were made
under the Act of Congress Page 163 U. S. 240 approved May 5, 1892, entitled "An act to prohibit the coming of
Chinese persons into the United States."

															The petitioners alleged that the proceedings and conviction were
wholly without jurisdiction on the part of the commissioner, and
without warrant and authority of law. They therefore prayed that
the writ might issue commanding the superintendent of the Detroit
House of Correction to forthwith bring the petitioners before the
court, and show cause, if any there be, why they should be further
detained and deprived of their liberty. The writ was immediately
issued and served upon the superintendent, commanding him to have
the bodies of the arrested and imprisoned Chinese, upon a day and
hour designated, before the court, together with the time and cause
of such imprisonment and detention.

															The superintendent immediately appeared before the court and
produced the arrested and imprisoned persons, with a copy of the
commitment issued by the commissioner at a session of the circuit
court of the United States or the Eastern District of Michigan,
held pursuant to adjournment in the district court room in the City
of Detroit on Friday, the 22d day of July, 1892, Hon. Henry H.
Swan, District Judge, being present, and, after arguments of
counsel were heard, the court ordered that the writ of habeas
corpus be discharged, and that the persons arrested be remanded to
the custody of Nicholson, the keeper of the Detroit House of
Correction, to serve their original sentences.

															The prisoners now allege that they are aggrieved by the decision
of the court, and are advised that the judgment and order are
erroneous upon the following, among other grounds:

															First because the commitment and imprisonment of the petitioners
in the House of Correction are unlawful and without warrant of law
and contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States;
that the proceedings and conviction of the petitioners before the
commissioner were wholly without jurisdiction on his part and
without warrant or authority of law; that for these and other
reasons appearing upon the face of the proceedings, the
petitioners, feeling themselves aggrieved by the judgment and
decision of the circuit court, Page 163 U. S. 241 appeal therefrom to the Supreme Court of the United States and
pray that the appeal may be allowed and, in accordance with the
rules and practice of that court, pending the appeal, they may be
admitted to bail, which prayer was granted.

															The question involved is whether a Chinese person can be
lawfully convicted and sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for
a definite period by a commissioner, without indictment or trial by
jury. The question involves the constitutionality of section 4 of
the act of 1892.

															It is submitted that this section is invalid because it
conflicts with the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which
declares that

															"no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or other
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand
jury, . . . nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without
due process of law,"

															and also conflicts with the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution,
which provides that

															"in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and
district wherein the crime shall have been committed."

															It does not follow that because the government may expel aliens
or exclude them from coming to this country, it can confine them at
hard labor in a penitentiary before deportment, or subject them to
any harsh and cruel punishment. If the imprisonment of a human
being at hard labor in a penitentiary for any misconduct or offense
is not punishment, it is difficult to understand how anything short
of the infliction of the death penalty for such misconduct or
offense is punishment. It would seem to be not only punishment, but
punishment infamous in its character which, under the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States, can only be inflicted upon a
person after his due conviction of crime pursuant to the forms and
provisions of law.

															Section 4 of the act of 1892 provides:

															"That any Chinese person or person of Chinese descent convicted
and adjudged to be not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the
United States shall be imprisoned at hard labor for a period not
exceeding one year, and thereafter removed from the United Page 163 U. S. 242 States as hereinbefore provided,"

															and whenever the law provides that imprisonment shall follow a
trial and conviction of the offender, it necessarily intends that
such imprisonment shall be inflicted as "punishment" for the
offense of which the person has been convicted. Imprisonment at
hard labor for a definite period is not only punishment, but it is
punishment of an infamous character.

															Imprisonment at hard labor in a state prison is also
"servitude," to which no person under the constitution can be
subjected except as a punishment for crime whereof he shall have
been duly convicted.

															In Ex Parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 417 , the
court said:

															"Imprisonment at hard labor, compulsory and unpaid, is, in the
strongest sense of the words, 'involuntary servitude for crime,'
spoken of in the Ordinance of 1787 and of the Thirteenth Amendment
of the Constitution, by which all other slavery was abolished."

															In 2 Story on the Constitution § 1924, it is said that this
amendment "forbids not merely the slavery heretofore known to our
laws, but all kinds of involuntary servitude not imposed in
punishment for a public offense."

															The provisions of the Fifth, Sixth, and Thirteenth Amendments of
the Constitution apply as well to Chinese persons who are aliens as
to American citizens.

															The term "person," used in the Fifth Amendment, is broad enough
to include any and every human being within the jurisdiction of the
republic. A resident, alien born, is entitled to the same
protection under the laws that a citizen is entitled to. He owes
obedience to the laws of the country in which he is domiciled, and,
as a consequence, he is entitled to the equal protection of those
laws.

															This has been decided so often that the point does not require
argument. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118
U. S. 369 ; Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan, 5 Sawy. 552; Carlisle v. United
States , 16 Wall. 147; In re Lee Tong, 18
F. 253; In re Wong Yung Quy, 6 Sawyer 237; In re Chow
Goo Pooi, 25 F. 77.

															The contention that persons within the territorial
jurisdiction Page 163 U. S. 243 of this republic might be beyond the protection of the law was
heard with pain on the argument at the bar -- in face of the great
constitutional amendment which declares that no state shall deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws. Far nobler was the boast of the great French cardinal who
exercised power in the public affairs of France for years that
never in all his time did he deny justice to any one. "For fifteen
years," such were his words,

															"while in these hands dwelt empire, the humblest craftsman, the
obscurest vassal, the very leper shrinking from the sum, though
loathed by charity, might ask for justice."

															It is to be hoped that the poor Chinamen now before us seeking
relief from cruel oppression will not find their appeal to our
republican institutions and laws a vain and idle proceeding.

															But while remarking upon and denouncing in the strongest
language every form of cruelty and barbarity in the legislation or
proceedings adopted for the expulsion or exclusion of Chinese from
the country who do not enter by the permission of the government,
in order to avoid a misconception of its authorized action in that
respect, the declarations of the Court with regard to the aliens
named as to their entrance, and as to the time and manner of their
departure, are adopted.

															And the statement of the Court in the present case that the
United States can, as a matter of public policy, by congressional
legislation, forbid aliens or classes of aliens from their
territory, and can, in order to make effectual such legislation for
their exclusion or expulsion, devolve the power and duty of
identifying and arresting them and causing their deportation upon
executive or subordinate officials, is accepted as sound.

															And the further views announced by the Court that when Congress
sees fit to promote such a policy by subjecting the persons of such
aliens to infamous punishment at hard labor or by confiscating
their property, such legislation, to be valid, must provide for an
arrest and trial to establish the guilt of the accused, are also
accepted and adopted. "It is not consistent," as truly said by the
Court,

															"with the theory of our government, that the legislature should,
after having defined an Page 163 U. S. 244 offense as an infamous crime, provide that the fact of infamy
shall be established by one of its own agents."