until such disqualification shall be removed by the Congress of the United States; provided, further, that no person while kept in any asylum, or confined in prison, or who has been convicted of felony, or who is of unsound mind, shall be allowed to vote or hold office.

It shall be the duty of the legislature of the State to make suitable provisions for the support and maintenance of a system of public free schools, for the gratuitous instruction of all the inhabitants of this State between the ages of six and eighteen years.

The legislature shall establish a uniform system of public free schools throughout the State.

The legislature at its first session (or as soon thereafter as may be possible) shall pass such laws as will require the attendance on the public free schools of the State of all the scholastic population thereof for the period of at least four months of each and every year ; provided, that whenever any of the scholastic inhabitants may be shown to have received regular instruction for said period of time in each and every year from any private teacher having a proper certificate of competency, this shall exempt them from the operation of the laws contemplated by this section.

As a basis for the establishment and endowment of said public free schools, all the funds, lands, and other property heretofore set apart and appropriated for the support and maintenance of public schools shall constitute the public school fund; and all sums of money that may come to this State hereafter from the sale of any portion of the public domain of the State of Texas shall also constitute a part of the public school fund. And the legislature shall appropriate all the proceeds resulting from sales of public, lands of this State to such public school fund. And the legislature shall set apart, for the benefit of public schools, one-fourth of the annual revenue derivable from general taxation, and shall also cause to be levied an$ collected an annual poll-tax of one dollar on all male persons in this State between the ages of twentyone and sixty years for the benefit of public schools. An.d said fund and the income derived therefrom, and the taxes herein, provided for school purposes, shall be a perpetual fund, to be, applied, as needed, exclusively for the education of all the scholastic inhabitants of this State, and no law shall ever be made appropriating such fund for any other use or purpose whatever.

The legislature shall, if necessary, in addition to the income derived from the public school fund and from the taxes for school purposes provided for in the foregoing section, provide for the raising of such amount, by taxation, in the several school districts in the State, as will be necessary to provide the necessary school-houses in each district and insure the education of all the scholastic inhabitants of the several districts.

The public lands heretofore given to counties shall be under the control of the legislature, and may be sold under such regulations as the legislature may prescribe, and in such case the proceeds of the same shall be added to the public school fund.

The legislature shall, at its first session, (and

D

from time to time thereafter, as may be found necessary,) provide all needful rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this article. It is made the imperative duty of the legislature to see to it that all the children in the State, within the scholastic age, are without delay provided with ample means of education. The legislature shall annually appropriate for school purposes, and to be equally distributed among all the scholastic population of the State, the interest accruing on the school fund and the income derived from taxation for school purposes, and shall, from time to time, as may be necessary, invest the principal of the school fund in the bonds of the United States Government, arid in no other security.

To every head of a family, who has not a homestead, there shall be donated one hundred and sixty acres of land out of the public domain, upon the condition that he will select, locate, and occupy the same for three years, and pay the office fees on the same. To all single men twenty-one years of age there shall be donated eighty acres of land out of the public domain, upon the same terms and conditions as are imposed upon the head of a family.

Members of the legislature, and all officers, before they enter upon the duties of their offices, shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I (A< B.) do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform

all duties incumbent on me as , according

to the best of my skill and ability, and that I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State. And I do further swear (or affirm), that since the acceptance of this constitution by the Congress of the United States, I, being a citizen of this State, have, not fought a duel with deadly weapons, or committed an assault upon any person with deadly weapons, or sentor accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, or acted as second in fighting a duel, or knowingly aided or assisted any one thus offending, either within the State or out of it; that I am not disqualified from holding office under the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, (or, as the case may be, my disability to hold office under the XIV amendment to the Constitution of the United States has been removed by act of Congress;) and, further, that I am a qualified elector in this State."

Laws shall be made to ex,clude from office, serving on juries, and from the right of suffrage, those who shall hereafter be convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes. The privilege of free suffrage shall be supported by; laws regulating elections, and prohibiting under adequate penalties all undue influence thereon from power, bribery, tumult, or other improper practice.

The legislature shall provide bylaw for the compensatiou of all officers, servants, agents-, and public contractors, not provided for by this constitution, and shall not grant extra compen^ sation to any officer, agent, servant, or public contractor, after such public service shall have been performed, or contract entered into for the performance of the same; nor grant, by appropriation or otherwise, any amount oi money out of the treasury of the State, to any individual, on a claim, real or pretended, where the same shall not have been provided for by preexisting law.

General laws, regulating the adoption of children, emancipation of minors, and the granting of divorces, shall be made; but no special law shall be enacted relating to particular or individual cases.

The rights of married women to their separate property, real and personal, and the increase of the same, shall be protected by law; and married women, infants, and insane persons, shall not be barred of their rights of property by adverse possession or law of limitation of less than seven years from and after the removal of each and all of their respective legal disabilities.

The legislature shall have power, and it shall be their duty, to protect by law from forced sale a certain portion of the property of all heads of families. The homestead of a family, not to exceed two hundred acres of land, (not included in a city, town, or village,) or any city, town, or village lot or lots, not to exceed five thousand dollars in value at the time of their designation as a homestead, and, without reference to the value of any improvements thereon, shall not be subject to forced sales for debts, except they be for the purchase thereof, for the taxes assessed thereon, or for labor and materials expended thereon; nor shall the owner, if a married man, be at liberty to alienate the same unless by the consent of the wife, and in such manner as may be prescribed by law.

AH persons who at any time heretofore lived together as husband and wife, and both of whom, hy the law of bondage, were precluded from the rites of matrimony, and continued to live together until the death of one of the parties, shall be considered as having been legally married, and the issue of such cohabitation shall be deemed legitimate , and all such persons as may be now living together in such relation shall be considered as having been legally married, and the children heretofore or hereafter born of such cohabitations shall be deemed legitimate.

No minister of the Gospel, or priest of any denomination whatever, who accepts a seat in the legislature as representative, shall, after such acceptance, be allowed to claim exemption from military service, road duty, or serving on juries, by reason of his said profession.

The ordinance of the convention passed on the first day of February, A. D. 1861, commonly known as the ordinance of secession, was in contravention of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and therefore null and void from the beginning; and all laws and parts of laws founded upon said ordinance were also null and void from the date of their passage. • The legislatures which sat in the State of Texas from the 18th day of March, A. D. 1861, until the 6th day of August, A. B. 1866, had no constitutional authority to make laws binding upon the people of the State of Texas: Provided. That this section

shall not be construed to inhibit the authorities of this State from respecting and enforcing such rules and regulations as. were prescribed by the said legislatures which were not in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, or in aid of the rebellion against the United States, or prejudicial to citizens of this State who were loyal to the United States, and which have been actually in force or observed in Texas during the above period of time, nor to affect prejudicially private rights which may have grown up under such rules and regulations, nor to invalidate official acts not in aid of the rebellion against the United States during said period of time. The legislature which assembled in the city of Austin on the 6th day of August, A. D. 1866, was provisional only, and its acts are to be respected only so far as they were not in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, or were not intended to reward those who participated in the rebellion or discriminate between citizens on account of race or color, or to operate prejudicially to any class of citizens.

All debts created by the so-called State of Texas from and after the 28th day of January, A. D. 1861, and prior to the 5th day of August, 1865, were and are null and void, and the legislature is prohibited from making any provision for the acknowledgment or payment of such debts. All unpaid balances, whether of salary, per diem, or monthly allowance due to employees of the State, who were in the service thereof on the said 28th day of January, 1861, civil or military, and who gave their aid, countenance, or support to the rebellion then inaugurated against the Government of the United States, or turned their arms against the said Government, thereby forfeited the sums severally due to them. All the ten per cent, warrants issued for military services, and exchanged during the rebellion at the treasury for non-interest warrants, are hereby declared to have been fully paid and discharged: provided, That any loyal person, or his or her heirs or legal representatives, may, by proper legal proceedings, to be commenced within two years alter the acceptance of this constitution by the Congress of the United States, show proof in avoidance of any contract made or revise or annul any decree or judgment rendered since the said 28th day of January, 1861,. when, through fraud practiced or threats of violence used towards such persons, no adequate consideration for the contract has been received; or when, through absence from the State of such person, or through political prejudice against such person, the decision complained of was not fair or impartial.

All the qualified voters of each county shall also be qualified jurors of such county.

Four congressional districts are established, to continue till otherwise provided by law.

The election on the adoption of the constitution to be held on the first Monday in July, 1869, at the places and under the regulations to be prescribed by the commanding general of the military district.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

On the Right of a State to Tax Passengers Passing through it.

No. 85, December Term, 1867.

William H. Cranda]l,pl'ff in error,"] In error to the su[ preme court of vs- f the State of Ne

The State of Nevada. J vada.

Mr. Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the court.

The question for the first time presented to the court by this record is one of importance. The proposition to be considered is the right of a State to levy a tax upon persons residing in the State who may wish to get out of it, and upon persons not residing in it who may have occasion to pass through it.

It is to be regretted that such a question should he submitted to our consideration with neither brief nor argument on the part of plaintiff in error. But our regret is diminished by the reflection," that the principles which must govern its determination have been the subject of much consideration in cases heretofore decided by this court.

The plaintiff in error, who was the agent of a stage company engaged in carrying passengers through the State of Nevada, was arrested for refusing to report the number of passengers that had been carried by the coaches of his company, and for refusing to pay the tax of one dollar imposed on each passenger by the law of that State. He pleaded in good form that the law of the State under which he was prosecuted was void, because it was in conflict with the Constitution of the United States; and his plea being overruled, the case came into the supreme court of the State, where it was decided against the claim thus set up under the Federal Constitution.

The provisions of the statute charged to be in violation of the Constitution are to be found in sections 90 and 91 of the revenue act of 1865, page 271 of the statutes of Nevada for that year. Section 90 enacts, that *' there shall be levied and collected a capitation tax of one dollar upon every person leaving the State by any railroad, stage-coach, or other vehicle engaged or employed in the business of transporting passengers for hire;" and that the proprietors, owners, and corporations so engaged shall pay said tax of one dollar for each and every person so conveyed or transported from the State. Section 91, for the purpose of collecting the tax, requires from persons engaged in such business, or their agents, a report every month, under oath, of the number of passengers so

transported, and the payment of the tax to the sheriff or other proper officer.

It is claimed by counsel for the State that the tax thus levied is not a tax upon the passenger, but upon the business of the carrier who transports him.

If the act were much more skillfully drawn to sustain this hypothesis than it is, we should be very reluctant to admit that any form of words which had the effect to compel every person traveling through the country by the common and usual modes of public conveyance to pay a specific sum to the State was not a tax upon the right thus exercised. The statute before us is' not, however, embarrassed by any nice difficulties of this character. The language which we have just quoted is, that there shall be levied and collected a capitation tax upon every person leaving the State by any railroad or stage-coach, and the remaining provisions of the act, which refer to this tax, only provide a mode of collecting it. The officers and agents of the railroad companies and the proprietors of the stagecoaches are made responsible for this, and so become the collectors of the tax.

We shall have occasion to refer hereafter somewhat in detail to the opinions of the judges of this court in the Passenger Cases, 7 Howard, in which there were wide differences on several points involved in the case before us. In the case from New York then under consideration the statute provided that the health commissioner should be entitled to demand and receive from the master of every vessel that should arrive in the port of-New -York from a foreign port $1 50 for every cabin passenger and $1 lor each steerage passenger, and from each coasting vessel twenty-five cents for every person on board. That statute does not use language so strong as the Nevada statute, indicative of a personal tax on the passenger, but merely taxes the master of the vessel according to the number of his passengers; but the court held it to be a tax upon the passenger, and that the master was the agent of the State for its collection. Chief Justice Taney, while he differed from the majority of the court, and held the law to be valid, said of the tax levied by the analogous statute of Massachusetts, that "its payment is the condition upon which the State permits the alien passenger to come on shore and mingle with its citizens and to reside among them. It is demanded of the captain, and not from every separate passenger, for convenience of collection. But the burden evidently falls upon the passenger, and he in fact pays it, either in the enhanced price of his passage, or directly to the captain before he is allowed to embark for the voyage. The nature of the transaction and the ordinarycourse of business show that this must be so."

Having determined that the statute of Nevada imposes a tax upon the passenger for the privU lege of leaving the State, or passing through it by the ordinary mode of passenger travel, we proceed to inquire if it is for that reason. \n conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

In the argument of the counsel for the defendant in error, and in the opinion of the supreme court of Nevada, which is found in the record, it is assumed that this question must be decided by an exclusive reference to two provisions of the Constitution, namely: that which forbids any.State, without the consent of Congress, to lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, and that which confers on Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States.

The question as thus narrowed is not free from difficulties. Can a citizen of the United States traveling from one part of the Union to another be called an export? It was insisted in the Passenger Cases, to which we have alreadyreferred, that foreigners coming to this country were imports within the meaning of the Constitution, and the provision of that instrument that the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States then existing should think proper to admit should not be-prohibited prior to,the year 1808, but that a tax might be imposed on such importation was relied on as showing that the word import applied topersons as well as to merchandize.; It was answered that this latter clause had exclusive reference to slaves, who were property as well as persons, and therefore proved nothing. While some of the judges who concurred in holding those laws to be unconstitutional gave as one of their reasons that they were taxes on imports, it is evident that this view did not receive the assent of a majority of the court. The application of this provision of the Constitution, to the proposition which we haye stated in regard to the citizen is still less satisfactory than it would be to the case of foreigners migrating to the United States.

But it is unnecessary to consider this point further in the view which we have taken of the case.

As regards the commerce clause of the Constitution, two propositions are advanced on behalf of the defendant in error: 1. That the tax imposed by the State on passengers is not a regulation of commerce. 2. That if it can be so considered it is one of those powers which the Spates can exercise until Congress has so legislated as to indicate its intention to exclude State legislation on the same subject.

The proposition that the, power to regulate commerce, as granted to Congress by the Constitution, necessarily excludes the exercise by the States of any of the power thus, granted, is one which has been much considered in this court, and the earlier discussions left the question in much doubt. As late as the 'January term, 1849, the opinions of the judges in the Passenger Cases show that the question was considered to be one .of much importance in those cases, $,nd was even then unsettled, though previous decisions of the

court were relied on by the judges themselves as deciding it in different ways. It was certainly, so far as those cases affected it, left an open question.

In the case of Cooley vs. Board of Wardens, 12 Howard, 299, four years later, the same question oajn'e directly before the court in reference to the local laws of the port"of Philadelphia concerning pilots. It was claimed that they constituted1 a'regulation of commerce; and were therefore void. The court held that they did come, within the meaning of the term "to regulate commerce," but that until Congress made regulations concerning pilots the States were competent to do so.

Perhaps no more satisfactory solution has ever been given of this vexed question than the one furnished by the court in that case. After showing that there are some powers granted to Congress which.are exclusive of similar powers in the States, because they are declared to be so, and that other powers are necessarily so from their very nature, the court proceeds to say, that the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States includes within its compass powers which can only be exercised by Congress, as well as powers which, from their nature, can best be exercised by the State legislatures, to which latter class the regulation of pilots belongs. "Whatever subjects of this power are in their nature national, or admit of one uniform system or plan of regulation, may justly be said to be of such a nature as to require exclusive legislation by Congress." In the case of Gillman vs. Philadelphia, 3 Wallace, 713, this doctrine is reaffirmed, and under it a bridge across a stream navigable from the ocean, authorized by State law, was held to be well authorized in the absence of any legislation by Congress affecting the matter.

It may be that under the power to regulate commerce among the States, Congress has authority to.pass laws, the operation of which would be inconsistent w^th the tax imposed by. the State of Nevada, but we know of no such statute now in existence. Inasmuch, therefore, as the tax does not itself institute any regulation of commerce of a national character, or which has a uniform operation over the whole country, it is not easy to maintain, in view of the principles on which those cases were decided, that it violates the clause of the Federal Constitution which we have had under review.

But we do not concede that the question before us is to be determined by the two clauses of the Constitution which we have been examining.

The people of these United States constitute one nation. They have a Government in which all of them are deeply interested. This Government has necessarily a capital established by law, where its principal operations are conducted. Here sits its legislature, composed of senators and representatives from the: States and from the pepple of the States. Here resides the President, directing through thousands of agents the execution of the laws,over all this vast country. Here is the seat of the supreme judicial power of the nation, to which all its citizens nave a right to resort to claim justice at its hands. Here are the great executive departments, administering the offices of the mails, of the public lands, of the collection and distribution of the public revenues, and of our foreign relations. These are all established and conducted under the admitted powers of the Federal Government. That Government has a right to call to this point any or all of its citizens to aid in its service, as members of the Congress, of the courts, of the executive departments, and to fill all its other offices; and this right cannot be made to depend upon the plea eure of a State, over whose territory they must pass to reach the point where these services must be rendered. The Government also has its offices of secondary importance in all other parts of the country. On the seacoasts and on the rivers it has its ports of entry. In the interior it has its land offices, its revenue offices, and its sub-treasuries. In all these it demands the services of its citizens, and is entitled to bring them to those points ffbm all quarters of the nation, and no power can exist in a State to obstruct this right that would not enable it to defeat the purposes for which the Government was established.

The federal power has a right to declare and prosecute wars, and, as a necessary incident, to raise and transport troops through and over the territory of any State of the Union.

If this right is dependent in any sense, however limited, upon the pleasure of a State, the Government itself may be overthrown by an obstruction to its exercise. Much the largest part of the transportation of troops daring the late rebellion was by railroads, and largely through States whose people were hostile to the Union. If the tax levied by Nevada on railroad passengers had been the law of Tennessee, enlarged to meet the wishes of her people, the treasury of the United States could not have paid the tax necessary to enable its armies to pass through her territory.

But if the Government has these rights on her own account, the citizen also has correlative rights. He has the right tq come to the seat of Government to assert any claim he may have upon that Government, or to transact any business he may have with it; to seek its protection, to share its offices, to engage in administering its functions. He has a right to free access to its sea^ports, through which all the operations of foreign trade and commerce are conducted, to the sub-treasuries, the land offices, the revenue offices, and the courts of justice in the several States, and this right is in its nature independent of the will of any State over whose soil he must pass in the exercise of it.

The views here advanced are neither novel nor unsupported by authority. The question of the taxing power of the States, as its exercise has, affected the functions of the Federal Government, has been repeatedly considered by this court, and the right of the States in this mode to impede or embarrass the constitutional operations of that Government, or the rights which its citizens hold under it, has been uniformly denied.

The leading case of this class is that of McCulloch vs. Maryland, (& Wheaton, 316.) The case is one every way important, and is familiar to tile statesman and the constitutional lawyer. The Congress,.for the purpose of aiding the fiscal operations ;of the Government, had chartered the

Bank of the United States, with authority to establish branches in the different States, and to issue notes for circulation. The 'legislature of Maryland had levied a tax upon these circulating notes, which the bank refused to pay, on the ground that the statute was void by reason of its antagonism to the Federal Constitution. No particular provision of the Constitution was pointed to as prohibiting the taxation by the State. Indeed, the authority of Congress to create the bank, which was strenuously denied, and the discussion of which constituted an important element in the opinion of the court, was not based by that opinion on any express grant of power, but was claimed to be necessary and proper to enable the Government to carry out its authority to raise a revenue, and to transfer and disburse the same. It was argued also that the tax on the circulation operated very remotely, if at all, on the only functions of the bank in which the Government was interested. But the court, by a unanimous judgment, held the law of Maryland to be unconstitutional.

It is not possible to condense the conclusive argument of Chief Justice Marshall in that case, and it is too familiar to justify its reproduction here; but an extract or two, in which the results of his reasoning are stated, will serve to show its applicability to the case before us. "That the power of taxing the bank by the States," he says, " may be exercised so as to destroy it is too obvious to be denied.' But taxation is said to be an absolute power, which acknowledges no other limits than those prescribed by the Constitution, and, like sovereign power of any description, is trusted to the discretion of those who use it. But the very terms of this argument admit that the sovereignty of the State in the article of taxation is subordinate to and may be controlled by the Constitution of the United States." Again he says : " We find then on just theory a total failure of the original right to tax the means employed by the Government of the Union for the execution of its powers. The right never existed, and the question of its surrender cannot arise. * * "That the power to tax involves the power to destroy: that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create; that there is a plain repugnance in conferring on one government a power to control the constitutional measures of another, which other, with respect to those very means, is declared to be supreme over that which exerts the control, are propdsitions not to be denied. If the States may tax one instrument employed by the Government in the execution of its powers, they may tax any and every other instrument. They may tax the mail; they may tax the mint; they may tax patent rights; they may tax the papers of the custom-house; they may tax judicial process; they may tax all the means employed by the Government to an excess which would defeat all the ends of Government. This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their Government dependent on the States."

It will be observed that it was not the extent of the tax in that case which > was complained of, but the right to levy any tax of that char