more than thirty-five years ago, when he said, | 204, 20 L. ed., 112. Were it not so, it is clear if Congress have a constitutional power to reg- that the constitutional provision could always be ulate a particular subject, and they do actual- evaded by the state courts giving such a conly regulate it in a given manner and in a cer- struction to the contract or the statute as to tain form, it cannot be that the State Legisla- render the appellate power of this court of no tures have a right to interfere, and, as it were, avail in such cases to uphold the contract against by way of compliment to the legislation of Con- unfriendly state legislation. Delmas v. Ins. Co., gress, to prescribe additional regulations and 14 Wall., 661, 20 L. ed., 757. what they may deem auxiliary provisions for the same purpose. The Chusan, 2 Story, 466; Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How., 227, 16 L. ed., 243. In such a case, the legislation of Congress in what it does prescribe manifestly indicates that it does not intend that there shall be any further legislation to act upon the subject-matter. Its silence as to what it does not do is as expressive of what its intention is as the direct provisions made by it. Prigg v. Com. of Pa., 16 Pet., 539; Gibbons v. Ogden [supra]; Bk. v. Smith [supra]. Whenever the terms in which a power is granted to Congress, or the nature of the power, requires that it should be exercised exclusively by Congress, the subject is as completely taken from the State Legislatures as if they had been expressly forbidden to exercise the power. Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat., 122; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat., 419. State Courts certainly have a right to expound the statutes of the State; and, having done so, those statutes, with the interpretation given to them by the highest court of the State, become the rule of decision in the Federal Courts. Richmond v. Smith, 15 Wall., 429, 21 L. ed., 200; Jones v. Richmond, 18 Gratt. (Va.), 517; Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599, 17 L. ed., 261. Argument, to show that the question, whether or not the State Court erred in the construction of their own Constitution and statute, is not re-examinable in this court under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, is unnecessary, as the negative of the proposition is self-evideut. Governed by the laws of Congress, it is clear that a steamer carrying passengers may have separate cabins and dining-saloons for white persons and persons of color, for the plain reason that the laws of Congress con- [501 tain nothing to prohibit such an arrangement. Irrespective of the decisions of the State Steamers carrying passengers for hire are bound, Court, it might well be doubted whether the if they have suitable accommodation, to take all State Statute in question does prohibit a steam- who apply, unless there is objection to the charer carrying passengers from having and main- acter or conduct of the applicant. Applicants taining separate cabins and eating saloons for to whom there is no such valid objection have white and colored passengers, and whether the a right to a passage, but it is not an unlimited denial to a colored female of a passage in the right. On the contrary, it is subject to such cabin assigned to white female passengers is a reasonable regulations as the proprietors may denial of equal rights and privileges, within the prescribe for the due accommodation of passenmeaning of the State Constitution or the 1st sec-gers and the due arrangement of the business tion of the State Statute in question, provided the applicant was offered a passage in the lower cabin, with equally convenient accommodation. Much discussion of that topic, however, is unnecessary, as two decisions of the State Court conclusively determine the point that the State Statute does contain such a prohibition, 500] and that the *facts of the case do bring the conduct of the defendant within that prohibition. De Cuir v. Benson, 27 La. Ann., 1; Hart v. Hoss. 22 La. Ann., 517; Sauvinet v. Walker, 27 La. Ann., 14. Even suppose the meaning of the statute is doubtful; still the rule of construction adopted by the highest court of a State, in construing their own Constitution and one of their own statutes, in a case not involving any question re-examinable in this court under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, must be regarded as conclusive in this court. Provident Inst. v. Massachusetts, 6 Wall., 611, 18 L. ed., 907; Randall v. Brigham, 7 Wall., 523, 19 L. ed., 285; Gut v. The State, 9 Wall., 35, 19 L. ed., 573. Where a state court gives such a construction to a state statute as to make it conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States, and sustains its validity after giving it such construction, and thereby deprives a party of his rights under the said Constitution or law, it is settled law that a federal question does arise in such a case, and that this court can review the decision of the State Court as to the validity of such a statute. Ins. Co. v. Treasurer, 11 Wall., of the carrier. Such proprietors have not only that right, but the further right to consult and provide for their own interests in the management of the vessel as a common incident to their right of property. They are not bound to admit passengers on board who refuse to obey the reasonable regulations of the vessel, or who are guilty of gross and vulgar habits of conduct, or who make disturbances on board, or whose characters are doubtful, dissolute, suspicious, or unequivocally bad. Nor are they bound to admit passengers on board whose object it is to interfere with the interests of the patronage of the proprietors, so as to make their business less lucrative or their management less acceptable to the public. Jencks v. Coleman, 2 Sumn., 221. Corresponding views are expressed by the Supreme Court of Michigan in an analogous case, in which the distinction between the right of an applicant to be admitted on board, and his claim to dictate what part of the vessel he shall occupy, is clearly pointed out. Referring to that subject, the court say the right to be carried is one thing, and the privilege of a passenger on board as to what part of the vessel may be occupied by him is another and a very different thing; and they add, that it is the latter and not the former which is subject to reasonable rules and regulations, and is, where such rules and regulations exist, to be determined by the proprietors. Damages were claimed in that case for refusing the plaintiff the privilege of the cabin; but the court held that the refusal was nothing more or less than denying him certain accommodations from which he was excluded by the rules and regulations of the steamer. Day v. Owen, 5 Mich., 520. 502] *Proprietors of the kind may make rules and regulations, but they must be reasonable; and the court held in that case, that to be so they should have for their object the accommodation of the passengers, including everything to render the transportation most comfortable and least annoying, not to one or two or any given number carried at any particular time, but to the great majority ordinarily transported; and they also held that such rules and regulations should be of a permanent nature, and not be made for a particular occasion or emergency. Special and important duties indubitably are imposed upon carriers of passengers for the benefit of the traveling public; but it must not be forgotten that the vehicles and vessels which such carriers use do not belong to the public. They are private property, the use and enjoyment of which belong to the proprietors. Ang., Carriers, 5th ed., sec. 525. Concede what is undoubtedly true, that the use and employment of such vehicles and vessels, during the time they are allowed the privileges of common carriers, may be subjected to such conditions and obligations as the nature of their employment requires for the comfort, security and safety of passengers, still the settled rules of constitutional law forbid that a State Legislature may invade the dominion of private right by arbitrary restrictions, requirements, or limitations, by which the property of the owners or possessors would be virtually stripped of all utility or value if bound to comply with the regulations. Jencks v. Coleman [supra]. Both steamboats and railways are modern modes of conveyance; but Shaw, Ch. J., decided that the rules of the common law were applicable to them, as they take the place of other modes of carrying passengers, and he held that they have authority to make reasonable and suitable regulations as regards passengers intending to pass and repass in their vehicles or vessels. Commonwealth v. Power, 7 Met., 601; Hibbard v. R. R. Co., 15 N. Y., 405; R. R. Co. v. Whittemore, 43 Ill., 420. They are, said the Chief Justice in that case, in a condition somewhat similar to that of an innkeeper, whose premises are open to all guests. Yet he is not only empowered to make such proper arrange503] ments as will promote *his own interests, but he is bound to regulate his house so as to preserve order and, if practicable, prevent breaches of the peace. Vinton v. R. R. Co., 11 Allen, 304. ty, and his public duty to promote the comfort and enjoyment of those traveling in his conveyance. Guided by those views, the court held that it is not an unreasonable regulation to seat passengers so as to preserve order and decorum, and to prevent contacts and collisions arising from natural or well known customary repugnances which are likely to breed disturbances, where white and colored persons are huddled together without their consent. R. R. Co. v. Miles, 55 Pa., 209. Sub Where the passenger embarks without making any special contract, and without knowledge as to what accommodations will be afforded, the law implies a contract which obliges the carrier to furnish suitable accommodations according to the room at his disposal; but the passenger in such a case is not entitled to any particular apartments or special accommodations. stantial equality of right is the law of the State and of the United States; but equality does not mean identity, as in the nature of things identity in the accommodation afforded to passengers, whether colored or white, is impossible, unless our commercial marine shall undergo an entire change. Adult male passengers are never allowed a passage in the ladies' cabin, nor can all be accommodated, if the company is large, in the state-rooms. Passengers are entitled to proper diet and lodging; but the laws of the United States do not require the master of *a steamer to put persons in the same [504 apartment who would be repulsive or disagreeable to each other. Steamers carrying passengers as a material part of their employment are common carriers, and as such enjoy the rights and are subject to the duties and obligations of such carriers; but there was and is not any law of Congress which forbids such a carrier from providing separate apartments for his passengers. What the passenger has a right to require is such accommodation as he has contracted for, or in the absence of any special contract, such suitable accommodations as the room and means at the disposal of the carrier enable him to supply; and in locating his passengers in apartments and at their meals it is not only the right of the master, but his duty, to exercise such reasonable discretion and control as will promote, as far as practicable, the comfort and convenience of his whole company. common Questions of a kindred character have arisen in several of the States, which support these views in a course of reasoning entirely satisfactory and conclusive. Boards of Education were created by a law of the State of Ohio, and they were authorized to establish within their respecCases of like import are quite numerous, and tive jurisdictions one or more separate schools the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided di- for colored children when the whole number by rectly that a public carrier may separate pas- enumeration exceeds twenty, and when such sengers in his conveyance; and they deduce his schools will afford them, as far as practicable, power to do so from his right of private prop- the advantages and privileges of a erty in the means of conveyance, and the ne- school education. Under that law, colored chilcessity which arises for such a regulation to pro- dren were not admitted as a matter of right inmote the public interest. Speaking to that point, to the schools for white children, which gave they say that the private means the carrier uses rise to contest, in which the attempt was made belong wholly to himself; and they held the to set aside the law as unconstitutional; but right of control in that regard as necessary to the Supreme Court of the State held that it enable the carrier to protect his own interests, worked no substantial inequality of school privand to perform his duty to the traveling pub-ileges between the children of the two classes in lic. His authority in that regard, as that court the locality of the parties; that equality of holds, arises from his ownership of the proper- rights does not involve the necessity of educat ing white and colored persons in the same school | termediate ports, to receive or discharge pas- 505] *Separate primary schools for colored and for white children were maintained in the City of Boston. Children in the State who are unlawfully excluded from public school instruction may recover damages therefor against the city or town by which such public instruction is supported. It appears that the plaintiff was denied admission to the primary school for white children, and she, by her next friend, claimed damages for the exclusion; but the Supreme Court, Shaw, Ch. J., giving the opinion, held that the law vested the power in the committee to regulate the system of distribution and classification, and that when the power was reasonably exercised their decision must be deemed conclusive. Distinguished counsel insisted that the separation tended to deepen and perpetuate responded, that they were not able to say that the decision was not founded on just grounds of reason and experience, and in the results of a discriminating and honest judgment. Roberts v. Boston, 5 Cush., 198. the odious distinction of caste; but the court Age and sex have always been marks of classification in public schools throughout the history of our country, and the Supreme Court of Nevada well held that the trustees of the public schools in that State might send colored children to one school and white children to another, or they might make any such classification as they should deem best, whether based on age, sex, race or any other reasonable existent condition. State v. Duffy, 7 Nev., 342. Commercial regulations of the kind cannot have regulated the enrollment and license of ves- that vessels engaged in foreign commerce or in no argument to show a direct conflict between Directors of schools in Iowa have no discretion under the existing law of the State to deny a youth of proper age admission to any particular school on account of nationality, color or religion. Former statutes of the State invested the directors with such discretion, and it is imSpeaking of that condition, the court say, if pliedly conceded that it would be competent for the interpretations of the court as to the force, the Legislature again to confer that authority. and effect of the privileges afforded to the vesClark v. Bd. of Directors, 24 Iowa, 266. sel by the Enrollment and License Act in the School privileges are usually conferred by stat-leading case are to be maintained, it can require ute and, as such, are subject to such regulations as the Legislature may prescribe. Such statutes generally provide for equal school advantages for all children, classifying the scholars as the Legislature in its wisdom may direct or authorize; and the Supreme Court of New York decided that the Legislature of the State 506] *may from time to time make such limitations and alterations in that regard as they may see fit. Dallas v. Fosdick, 40 How., Pr., 249. Public instruction of the kind is regulated in that State by official Boards created for the purpose; and it is settled law there that the Board may assign a particular school for colored children, and exclude them from schools assigned for white children, and that such a regulation is not in violation of the 14th Amendment. People v. Easton, 13 Abb., Pr. (N. S.), 160. Ships and vessels duly enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade may lawfully touch at in Nor does it require any argument, to show that the State Law before the court is exactly analogous in principle to the State Law declared void in that case. Like the former, the latter imposes an additional condition to the privilege of carrying on the coasting trade within the waters of the State, not prescribed by any Act of Congress. Enrolled and licensed vessels have the constitutional right to pursue the coasting trade on the terms and conditions which Congress has seen fit to prescribe, and no State Legislature can interfere with that right, either to abridge or enlarge it, or to subject it to any terms and conditions whatsoever. Commerce among the several States, as well as commerce with foreign nations, requires uniformity of regulation; and that power is by the Constitution vested exclusively in Congress, as appears by the Constitution itself and by an unbroken course of the decisions of this court, covering a period of more than half a century. Judicial authority to support the theory of the court below is entirely wanting, except what may be derived from the case of Coger v. Packet Co., 37 Iowa, 145, decided by the Supreme Court of the State. Special damage was claimed by the plaintiff in that case, of the master of a steamer navigating the Mississippi River, for 508] removing her, she being a colored *woman, from the dining room of the steamer without just cause. Regulations had previously been adopted by the steamer excluding colored persons from the state-rooms and other first class privileges and accommodations. Service was made, and the defendant appeared and pleaded those regulations as a defense. Hearing was had, and the court decided that persons of color were entitled to the same rights and privileges, when traveling, as white persons, and that they cannot be required by any rule or custom based on distinction of color or race to accept other or different accommodations than those furnished to white persons. Abundant reasons exist to show that the decision in that case is not an authority in the case before the court, a few of which will be stated: (1) Because the report of the case does not show that the steamer was navigating under a coasting license. (2) Because the constitutional question involved in the case before the court was neither involved, presented nor considered in that case, either by the bar or the court. (3) Because the decision was rested entirely upon other and different grounds. (4) Because the facts of the two cases are widely and substantially different. Colored persons, it is admitted, are citizens, and that citizens, without distinction of race or color or previous condition of servitude, have the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of personal property, as is enjoyed by white citizens. 14 Stat. at L., 27. States are also forbidden to 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. Enforcement Act, 16 Stat. at L., 140; 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Vague reference is made to the Civil Rights Act and to the preceding Amendment to the Constitution, as if that Act or the said Amendment may supersede the operation and legal effect of the coasting license as applied to the 509] case before the court; but it is clear that neither of those provisions, nor both combined, were intended to accomplish any such purpose. Enough appears in the language employed in those provisions to show that their principal object was to confer citizenship, and the rights which belong to citizens as such, upon the colored people, and in that manner to abrogate the rule previously adopted by this court in the Dred Scott case. By the Civil Rights Act, the rule adopted in that case is entirely superseded, and all the substantial rights of citizens are conferred upon the colored people, as more fully appears by the enumeration contained in the 1st section of the Act. Under no view, therefore, that can properly be taken of that Act can it be held to supersede, repeal, modify, or affect the Act of Congress, providing for the enrollment and licensing of ships and vessels for the coasting trade. Dallas v. Fosdick [supra.]. Certain phases of the question were also presented to the District Court of Philadelphia, in the case of Goines v. M'Candless, 4 Phila., C. P., 255, in which the court admitted that a corporation created for the carriage of passengers cannot arbitrarily refuse to carry any man or class of men without laying itself open to an action for damages; but the court held in the same case that such a corporation may establish reasonable rules for the comfort and convenience of those whom it is bound to carry, even though the effect may be to exclude particular individuals falling within those rules. Evidence of a decisive character that Congress has regulated interstate commerce is also found in the Act supplemental to the Act providing for the enrollment and licensing of ships and vessels for the coasting trade, the 1st section of which divides the sea-coasts and navigable rivers into three great districts, and provides as follows: (1) That the first shall include all the collection districts on the sea-coast and navigable rivers between the limits of the United States and the southern limits of Georgia. (2) That the second shall include all the collection districts and navigable rivers between the river Perdido and the Rio Grande. (3) That the third shall include all the collection districts on the sea-coast and navigable rivers between the southern limits of Georgia and the River Perdido. R. S., sec. 4348; 3 Stat. at L., 493. *Congress having legislated upon the [510 subject, it cannot be that the State Legislatures have a right to interfere and prescribe additional regulations, as the legislation of Congress clearly indicates that the national law makers never intended to leave anything open upon the subject to the discretion of the State Legislatures. Two opposing theories, sometimes advanced in such controversies, deserve some brief comments before concluding the examination of the case. They are in substance and effect as follows: (1) That the effect of the coasting license issued under the Enrollment Act is merely to evidence the national character of the vessel; that the Acts of Congress requiring the register and enrollment of vessels was never intended as the exercise of the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the States, and that the States still possess the concurrent power to prescribe such regulations until Congress shall ordain express provisions to control and restrict the regulations enacted by the States. (2) That the Supreme Court, by a decision made subsequent to the decree in the great leading case in which it is held that the power to regulate commerce is vested exclusively in Congress, qualified, if they did not positively overrule, that generally acknowledged rule upon the subject. 1. Enough, it would seem, has already been remarked to refute the first opposing theory; but, if more be needed, it will be found in the fact that it is the exact theory maintained by the courts of the State where the controversy | where the decree was reversed on the ground arose, and whose final decree was removed into this court for re-examination. None will attempt to deny that proposition who ever read the opinions delivered in the subordinate courts. Ogden v. Gibbons, 4 Johns. Ch., 150; Gibbons v. Ogden, 17 Johns., 488; 1 Kent, Com., 12th ed., 435. Explanations respecting that historical controversy, of a more satisfactory character, are given by Chancellor Kent than by any other legal writer who has undertaken to state the constitutional questions which it involved, and which were finally determined by the unanimous judgment of this court. His statement of the case is as follows: that the respondent set up, by way of right and title to navigate the waters of the State in opposition to the 511] grant of the complainant, that his *steamboats were duly enrolled and licensed under the Enrollment Act, to be employed in carrying on the coasting trade; that the question in the case was, whether such a coasting license conferred the power to interfere with the grant of the State under which the complainant claimed the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State which made the grant. Eminent counsel represented both sides of the question, and we are informed by the learned commentator that the courts of the State in the two cases referred to decided against the defense set up in the answer of the respondent, and held that the coasting license merely gave to the steamboats of the respondent the character of American vessels; that the license was not intended to decide a question of property, or to confer a right of property or a right of navigation or commerce; that the courts of that State during that period never regarded the Act regulating the coasting trade as intended to assert any supremacy over state regulations in respect to internal waters or commerce, for the reason that those courts did not consider that Act as the exercise of the power vested in Congress to regulate commerce among the States. Competent evidence to show that the courts of that State in those two cases took the exact same ground as that involved in the theory in question is very abundant and conclusive, without looking elsewhere than to the lecture of the Chancellor under consideration. Decisive support to that conclusion is also found in what follows in the same connection in the same lecture, in which he says that the courts of the State did not, either in the case of Ogden v. Gibbons or in any of the cases which preceded it, deny to Congress the power to regulate commerce among the States by express and direct provision, so as to control and restrict the exercise of the state grant; that they only insisted that without some such explicit provision the state jurisdiction over the subject was in full force, which is exactly what is claimed by those who seek to undermine the doctrines of the great leading case. Beyond all question, the views of the Chancellor as to what was decided by the courts of the State in that great controversy are correct, and it will be equally instructing to ascertain what his views are as to what followed in this 512] court. Speaking *upon that subject, he says the cause was afterwards carried up by appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, that the grant to the complainant was repugnant to the rights and privileges conferred upon the steamboats of the respondent navigating under a coasting license; that, in the construction of the power to regulate commerce, the Supreme Court held that the term meant not only traffic but intercourse, and that it included navigation, and that the power to regulate commerce was a power to regulate navigation; that commerce among the several States meant commerce intermingled with the States, and which might pass the external boundary line of each State, and be introduced into the interior; that the power conferred comprehended navigation within the limits of every State, and that it may pass the jurisdictional line of a State and be exercised within its territory, so far as the navigation is connected with foreign commerce or with commerce among the several States; and that the power, like all the other powers of Congress, is plenary and absolute within its acknowledged limits. Three limitations or restrictions, as the Chancellor states, were admitted by the Supreme Court in that case to exist to the limits of that power as conferred: (1) That the power does not extend to that commerce which is completely internal, and is carried on between different parts of the same State, not extending to or affecting other States. (2) That the power is restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one, the completely internal commerce of a State being reserved for the State itself. (3) That the power conferred does not prohibit the States from passing inspection laws or quarantine or health laws and laws for regulating highways and ferries, nor does it include the power to regulate the purely internal com merce of a State, or to act directly on its system of police. 1 Kent, Com., 12th ed., 437. Many efforts have been made to analyze and expound the opinion delivered by the great magistrate in that case, but none, it is believed were ever attended with such complete success as that of the commentator to which reference is made. He was the Chancellor of the State Court, and gave the original opinion; and, when he found that his decree was reversed by the Supreme Court, he was influenced by [513 the highest motive to ascertain the true grounds assumed in the judgment of the appellate court. Judge Story says, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, that it has been settled, upon the most solemn deliberation, that the power to regulate commerce is exclusive in the Government of the United States; and he adds, in another section of the Commentaries, that the reasoning by which the power given to Congress to regulate commerce is maintained to be exclusive has not of late been seriously controverted, and that it seems to have the cheerful acquiescence of the learned tribunals of a particular State, one of whose Acts brought it first under judicial examination. 2 Story, Const., 3d ed., secs. 1067, 1071; Steamboat Co. v. Livingston, 3 Cow., 713; People v. Brooks, 4 Denio, 469; Pomeroy, Const., 3d ed., sec. 371; Sergeant, Const., 2d ed., 308; Rawle, Const., 2d ed.. 82; R. R. Co. v. Husen, decided at the present Term lante, 527]. Repeated decisions of this court, including |