Teleph. Co. (1900) 30 Misc. 236, 62 N. Y. Supp. 172; Western U. Teleg. Co. v. New York (1889) 3 L. R. A. 449, 2 Inters. Com. Rep. 533, 38 Fed. 552.

Summary seizures.-The act of 1896, chap. 383, authorizing the summary seizure and disposal of any boat used in interfering with oysters, etc., belonging to another, was not within the police power of the legislature. Colon v. Lisk (1897) 153 N. Y. 188, 60 Am. St. Rep. 609, 47 N. E. 302.

Sunday. The act of 1901, chap. 392, amending the Penal Code, § 267, by prohibiting the sale of uncooked meat at any time on Sunday, was a valid exercise of police power. People ex rel. Woodin v. Hagan (1901) 36 Misc. 349, 73 N. Y. Supp. 564.

Tenement houses.-The New York tenement house acts of 1901, chapters 334 and 555, were valid as an exercise of police power. New York v. Herdje (1902) 68 App. Div. 370, 74 N. Y. Supp. 104; Signell v. Wallace (1901) 35 Misc. 656, 72 N. Y. Supp. 348.

PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES.

It has already been noted in the chapter on the first Constitution that the clause relating to privileges and immunities of citizens was included in the Articles of Confederation adopted by the Continental Congress in 1778. Article 4 of that instrument contains the provision that "the better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states of this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states." The Federal Constitution (1787) continued this provision by declaring (article 4, § 2, subd. 1) that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states;" and the 14th Amendment (1868) repeated it in the clause most frequently quoted in recent years, in the mandate addressed to all members of the Union: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and VOL. IV. CONST. HIST.-19.

immunities of citizens of the United States." The New York courts have had frequent occasion to test the validity of statutes as affected by this provision.

Chief Justice (afterwards Chancellor) Kent in Livingston v. Van Ingen (1812) 9 Johns. 576, commenting on this provision, says: "It means only that citizens of other states shall have equal rights with our own citizens, and not that they shall have different or greater rights. Their persons and property must in all respects be equally subject to our law."

The provision in the original Federal Constitution was considered in Livingston v. Tompkins (1820) 4 Johns. Ch. 416, 8 Am. Dec. 598, involving the right of the states of New York and New Jersey to control navigation in public waters separating the two states, and Chancellor Kent said he had hitherto "understood and believed that the citizens of each state were entitled, under the Constitution of the nation, to free ingress and egress to and from any other state, and were entitled to all immunities of citizens in every state."

The provision was held not to apply to a resident of Pennsylvania who sought to maintain in this state an action against a Pennsylvania corporation. Construing § 1780 of the Code of Civil Procedure, it was said that the constitutional provision does not secure to citizens of any state the right to exercise, in another state, privileges and immunities which are not conferred upon citizens of that state. Adams v. Penn Bank (1885) 35 Hun, 393. This section of the Code was again construed under like conditions and with the same result in Robinson v. Oceanic Steam Nav. Co. (1889) 112 N. Y. 315, 2 L. R. A. 636, 19 N. E. 625. See also Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. (1902) 169 N. Y. 506, 88 Am. St. Rep. 608, 62 N. E. 587, affirmed in (1903) 191 U. S. 373, 48 L. ed. 225, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 92.

The act of 1831, chap. 300, to abolish imprisonment for debt, and which prohibited the arrest on civil process of a person who had been a resident of the state for one month, was held not to apply to a nonresident, although he had been in the state more than a month prior to the arrest. Citizens of other states must put themselves on a footing with our own citizens, "and then they are entitled to the like immunities." The Constitution does not guarantee them any greater privileges. Frost v. Brisbin (1837) 19 Wend. 11, 32 Am. Dec. 423.

The act of 1851, chap. 95, prohibiting persons from acting as agents of foreign insurance companies not authorized to do business in this state, is not a violation of this provision. The act takes from no citizen of Pennsylvania any privilege which it allows to a citizen of New York. It applies to nonresident as well as resident agents. A corporation is not a citizen, and is not entitled to any privilege not granted to a citizen. People v. Imlay (1855) 20 Barb. 68.

Judge Denio in Lemmon v. People (1860) 20 N. Y. 562, 607, had occasion to quote this clause while discussing the effect of the fugitive slave provision, and said that no other provision of the Constitution had so strongly tended to constitute the citizens of the United States one people.

The establishment of separate schools for white and for colored children does not violate this provision, if the schools afford equal educational facilities. An order of the board of public instruction of the city of Albany providing separate schools for colored children was sustained. People ex rel. Dietz v. Easton (1872) 13 Abb. Pr. N. S. 159.

The subject was again considered with special reference to the 14th Amendment in People ex rel. King v. Gallagher (1883) 93 N. Y. 438, 45 Am. Rep. 232, involving the right of the state to establish and maintain separate schools for colored persons. It was claimed that a colored person not only had a right equal with a white person to acquire an education, but that such education should be furnished at the same time and place with that afforded to any other child, and that a denial of this right was an abridgment of the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution. Chief Judge Ruger gave a brief historical summary of the origin of the amendment, and quoted from Justice Strong in Ex parte Virginia (1879) 100 U. S. 344, 25 L. ed. 678, the statement that "one great purpose of these amendments was to raise the colored race from that condition of inferiority and servitude in which most of them had previously stood, into perfect equality of civil rights with all other persons within the jurisdiction of the states;" and also from Strauder v. West Virginia (1879) 100 U. S. 306, 25 L. ed. 665, the further observation by the same learned judge, that the amendment was "designed to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all of the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment when it should be denied by the states." Chief Judge Ruger thought it was a "plain deduction" from the Slaughter-House Cases (1872) 16 Wall. 36, 21 L. ed. 394, that the "privilege of receiving an education at the

expense of the state, being created and conferred solely by the laws of the state, and always subject to its discretionary regulation, might be granted or refused to any individual or class at the pleasure of the state." The right conferred by the constitutional provision was in this case deemed to include "the privilege of obtaining an education under the same advantages and with equal facilities for its acquisition with those enjoyed by any other individual," but it did not attempt to regulate social conditions, which, for the most part, are beyond the reach of the legislative functions of government to organize or control. "When the government, therefore, has secured to each of its citizens equal rights before the law, and equal opportunities for improvement and progress, it has accomplished the end for which it is organized, and performed all of the functions respecting social advantages with which it is endowed. . . . A natural distinction exists between these races which was not created neither can it be abrogated by law, and legislation which recognizes this distinction and provides for the peculiar wants or conditions of the particular race can in no just sense be called a discrimination against such race or an abridgment of its civil rights." The establishment of separate schools was sustained, provided they conferred equal facilities for obtaining an education.

The civil service acts of 1884, chap. 410, and 1887, chap. 464, giving a preference to veterans, were not obnoxious to this provision. These statutes did not affect any rights constitutionally guaranteed to citizens. Re Wortman (1888) 22 Abb. N. C. 137, 2 N. Y. Supp. 324, Daniels, J.

The elective franchise is not affected by this provision. People v. Barber (1888) 48 Hun, 198.

A corporation is not a citizen within the meaning of this provision, and therefore a foreign corporation is not, as a matter of right, entitled to enjoy in this state the privileges conferred on domestic corporations. "The right of citizens to associate themselves together to do business as a corporation is not a natural or inherent right, but is a special privilege granted by the sovereign power; and a privilege so granted cannot be exercised in a sovereignty other than that granting it, except by comity." People ex rel. Parke, D. & Co. v. Roberts (1895) 91 Hun, 158, 36 N. Y. Supp. 368, (1896) 149 N. Y. 608, 44 N. E. 1127.

The requirement of § 14 of the banking law that certain foreign corporations should, before doing business in the state, deposit with the superintendent of banks securities for the protection of domestic creditors and shareholders, is not a violation of this provision. Peo

ple v. Granite State Provident Asso. (1900) 161 N. Y. 492, 55 N. E. 1053.

"It was never one of the privileges or immunities of a citizen of the United States to be confronted with the witnesses against him in a state court," and the legislature may provide that a "trial of a misdemeanor may be had in the absence of the defendant, if he appear by counsel." People v. Welsh (1903) 88 App. Div. 65, 84 N. Y. Supp. 703.

The main purpose of § 1 of the 14th Amendment “was the protection of negroes against invidious distinctions as to their legal rights. While it has not such a restricted sense as matter of law, it would be a long stretch of interpretation to extend it to the protection of persons in holding state offices. It cannot be affirmed that any person has a right to be appointed to a nonelective municipal office. If the municipality confers such an office upon an individual he cannot be said to have a property right therein until a definite term of tenure has been affixed thereto. At the most it is only a privilege, and as to privileges of citizens we have the definite utterance of the Supreme Court of the United States in Presser v. Illinois (1886) 116 U. S. 252, 266, 29 L. ed. 615, 619, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 580, where it is held that 'a state may pass laws to regulate the privileges and immunities of its own citizens, provided that in so doing it does not abridge their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States.'" The veteran provisions of the Constitution and of the civil service laws are "precisely and completely within the language and spirit of this opinion of the United States Supreme Court." People ex rel. Kenny v. Folks (1903) 89 App. Div. 171, 85 N. Y. Supp. 1100.

PROCEDURE.

Appeal.-"No person has a constitutional right to appeal, and no court has an inherent right to entertain an appeal. The right, if it exists, and in all cases where it does exist, is simply the continuance of an existing practice by the Constitution, subject to the legislative right to curtail or abolish it, or it must be founded in some statute." Appeals in criminal cases are regulated by the Code of Criminal Procedure. People v. Rutherford (1900) 47 App. Div. 209, 62 N. Y. Supp. 224.

An appeal is not a matter of inherent right, but it is subject to legislative regulation, unless specifically guaranteed by the Constitution. People ex rel. Grissler v. Fowler (1874) 55 N. Y. 675;