Jacobson v. Massachusetts

197 U.S. 11, 25 S. Ct. 358, 49 L. Ed. 643, 1905 U.S. LEXIS 1232
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedFebruary 20, 1905
Docket70
StatusPublished
Cited by1,262 cases

This text of 197 U.S. 11 (Jacobson v. Massachusetts) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 S. Ct. 358, 49 L. Ed. 643, 1905 U.S. LEXIS 1232 (1905).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Harlan,

after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

We pass without extended discussion the suggestion that the particular section of the statute of Massachusetts now in question (§ 137, c. 75) is in derogation of rights secured by the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. Although'that Preamble indicates the. general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution,. it has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments. Such powers embrace only those expressly granted in the body of the Constitution and such as may be implied from those, so granted. Although, therefore, one of the declared objects of the. Constitution was to secure the blessings of liberty to all under the sovereign jurisdiction and authority of the United States, no power can be exerted to that end by the United States unless, • apart from the Preamble, it be found in some express delegation of power or in some power to be properly implied therefrom. 1 Story’s Const. § 462.

We also pass without discussion the suggestion that the above section of the statute is opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. ’ Undoubtedly, ás observed by Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the court in Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 202, “the spirit of an instrument, especially of a constitution, is to be respected not less than its letter, yet the spirit is to be collected chiefly from its words.” ' We have no need in this case to go beyond the plain, obvious meaning of the words in those provisions of the Constitution which, it is contended, must control our decision.

What, according to the judgment of the state court, is the *23 .scope ánd-effect of the statute? What results were intended to be accomplished by it? These questions must be answered.

The Supreme Judicial Court .of Massachusetts said in the present case: “Let us consider the offer of evidence which was made by the defendant Jacobson. The ninth of the propositions which he offered to prove, as to what vaccination consists of, is nothing more than a fact of common knowledge, upon which the statute is founded, and proof of it was unnecessary and immaterial. The thirteenth and fourteenth involved matters depending upon his personal opinion, which could not be taken as correct, or given 'effect, merely because he made it a ground of refusal to comply with the requirement. Moreover, his views could not affect the validity of the statute, nor entitle him to be excepted from its provisions. Commonwealth v. Connelly, 163 Massachusetts, 539; Commonwealth v. Has, 122 Massachusetts, 40; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145; Regina v. Downes, 13 Cox C. C. 111. The other eleven .propositions all relate to alleged injurious or dangerous effects of vaccination. The defendant ‘offered to prove and show by competent evidence’ these so-called facts. Each of them, in its nature, is such that it cannot be stated as a truth, otherwise than as a matter of opinion. The only ‘competent evidence’ that could be presented to the court to prove these propositions was the testimony of experts, giving their opinions. It would not have been competent to introduce the medical history of individual cases. Assuming that medical experts'could have been found who would have testified in support of these propositions, and that it had become the duty of the judge, in accordance with the law as stated in Commonwealth v. Anthes, 5 Gray, 185, to instruct the jury as to whether or not the statute is constitutional, he would have been obliged to consider the evidence in connection with facts of common knowledge, which the court will always regard in passing upon the constitutionality of a statute. • He would have considered this testimony of experts in connection with the facts that for nearly a century most of the members of the medical profession *24 have regarded vaccination, repeated after intervals, as a preventive of smallpox; that while they have recognized the possibility of injury to an individual from carelessness in the performance of it, or even in a conceivable, case without carelessness, they generally have considered the risk of such an' injury too small to be seriously weighed as against the benefits coming from the discreet and proper use of the preventive; and that not only the medical profession and the people generally have for . a long time entertained these opinions, but legislatures and courts have acted upon them with general unanimity. If the defendant had been permitted to introduce such expert testimony as he had in support of these several propositions, it could not have changed the result. It would' not have justified the court in holding that- the legislature had transcended its power in enacting this statute, on their judgment of what the welfare of the people demands.” Commonwealth v. Jacobson, 183 Massachusetts, 242.

-. While the mere rejection of defendant’s offers of proof does not strictly present a Federal question, we may properly regard the. exclusion of evidence upon the ground of its irico'mpetency or immateriality under the statute as showing what, in “the opinion of the state court, is the scope and meaning of the statute. Taking the above observations of the state' court as indicating the scope of the statute — and such is our duty, Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599, 603, Morley v. Lake Shore Railway Co., 146 U. S. 162 167, Tullis v. L. E. & W. R. R. Co., 175 U. S. 348, W. W. Cargill Co. v. Minnesota, 180 U. S. 452, 466—we assume for the purposes of the present inquiry that its provisions require, at least 1 as a general rule", that adults not under guardianship and remaining within the limits of the city of Cambridge must submit, to the regulation adopted by the Board of Health. Is the statute, so construed, therefore, inconsistent with the liberty which "the Constitution of the United States secures to every person*'against deprivation by the State? . ’

The authority of the State to enact this statute is to be *25 referred to what is commonly called the police power — a power which the State did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under .the Constitution. Although this court has refrained from any attempt to define the limits of that power, yet it has distinctly recognized the authority of a State to enact .quarantine laws and “health-laws of every description;” indeed, all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory and which do not by their, necessary operation affect the people of other States.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
197 U.S. 11, 25 S. Ct. 358, 49 L. Ed. 643, 1905 U.S. LEXIS 1232, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jacobson-v-massachusetts-scotus-1905.