Field v. Clark
 | |
| Field v. Clark | |
| Reference: 143 U.S. 649 (1892) | |
| Term: 1891 | |
| Important Dates | |
| Argued: November 30, December 1-2, 1891 Decided: February 29, 1892 | |
| Outcome | |
| United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois affirmed | |
| Majority | |
| John Harlan I • Stephen Johnson Field • Horace Gray • Samuel Blatchford • David Josiah Brewer • Henry Billings Brown • George Shiras | |
| Concurring | |
| Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar • Melville Fuller | |
| Dissenting | |
| None | |
Field v. Clark is a case decided on February 29, 1892, by the United States Supreme Court concerning the constitutionality of a congressional delegation of authority to the President as part of the Tariff Act of 1890, commonly known as the Mckinley Tariff.[1] Several import businesses, including Marshall Field & Co., the defendant, argued that the tariff represented an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the tariff was constitutional, since it only delegated discretionary power to the President.[2]
Why it matters:
The decision provided an earlier precursor to the intelligible principle test established later in J.W. Hampton Jr. & Company v. United States (1928).
Background
| Five Pillars of the Administrative State |
|---|
| Legislative control |
|
•Court cases |
| More pillars |
| •Agency control • Executive control •Judicial control • Public control |
| Click here for more coverage of the administrative state on Ballotpedia.
|
| Click here to access Ballotpedia's administrative state legislation tracker. |
The Judiciary Act of 1891, which was passed one year before the ruling in Field v. Clark, established nine United States Circuit Courts of Appeals. Previously, the federal court system had used the basic structure set by the Judiciary Act of 1789, with one or more District Courts in each state, along with Circuit Courts that moved around the state throughout the year (hence the name "circuit"). Prior to 1891, the Supreme Court had acted as a court of appeals for all federal courts and its justices had been required to spend a certain amount of time per year traveling a circuit. Following the Judiciary Act of 1891, appeals from District and Circuit Courts went to the Circuit Courts of Appeals, then could advance to the Supreme Court, though some types of cases could advance to the Supreme Court directly. Constitutional cases were one such type, so Field v. Clark advanced directly from the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois to the Supreme Court. The act also eliminated the traveling requirement for Supreme Court justices. Twenty years later, the Judicial Code of 1911 eliminated the Circuit Courts and transferred most of their responsibilities to the District Courts.
The Tariff Act of 1890, often called the McKinley Tariff after its sponsor William McKinley, altered the tariffs on a wide range of imported goods. It also gave the President the power to suspend the tariff rates set by the act if another country altered its tariffs in a way that he felt was harmful to U.S. industry and trade. Several import businesses, including Marshall Field & Co., the defendant in this case, challenged the validity of the tariff. In each case, the United States Circuit Courts sided with the government and found the tariff to be valid. Field & Co. appealed the case, and since it dealt with the constitutionality of the tariff, it advanced to the Supreme Court. [1]
Oral argument
Oral arguments were held on November 30 and December 1 & 2, 1891. The case was decided on February 29, 1892.[3]
Outcome
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Tariff Act of 1890 was constitutional, since it only delegated to the President the power of discretion, not the power of legislation.
Justice John Harlan I wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Stephen Johnson Field, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford, David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, and George Shiras.
Justice Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar dissented from the opinion but concurred in the judgment, and was joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller.
Opinions
Opinion of the court
Writing for the court, Justice John Harlan I identified three grounds upon which the plaintiffs challenged the Tariff Act. They first alleged that the act had not been passed according to the proper legislative procedures, since the final version had differed from the version signed by the President and presiding congressional officers. They pointed to discrepancies in the House and Senate journals as evidence for this claim. Justice Harlan drew on several earlier precedents to argue that these journals did not constitute the "highest evidence of the facts," and so a law that been passed could not "be overcome by what the journal of either house shows or fails to show."[2]
The plaintiffs next argued that Section 3 of the act, which had given the President power to suspend the tariff rates set by the act if he felt that certain countries had enacted tariffs harmful to the United States, was an unconstitutional delegation of Congress' legislative power. In response, Harlan quoted a series of earlier tariff acts which had given similar discretion to the President. He also noted that Congress had "prescribed, in advance, the duties to be levied, collected, and paid" and that the President's power related only to the enforcement of the act. The President was thus "the mere agent of the law-making department," so the act was constitutional.
Finally, the plaintiffs contended that the section of the act that prescribed subsidies to be paid by Congress to domestic sugar producers was unconstitutional, since Congress had no power to appropriate such funds. They argued that the Court should invalidate this section, which would thus invalidate the entire act. Justice Harlan held that even if this section were found to be invalid, it would not be necessary to strike down the other sections of the act.
The Supreme Court held the Tariff Act of 1890 to be constitutional, affirming the judgments of the lower courts.
Concurring opinions
Justice Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar dissented from the opinion but concurred in the judgment, and was joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller. The two disagreed with the majority and felt that Section 3, which gave the President discretion to suspend the tariff, did involve an unconstitutional delegation of Congress' legislative and treaty-making powers. They also contended that the earlier acts cited by Justice Harlan had been fundamentally different from the act in question. Though they felt Section 3 was unconstitutional, they concluded that this did not invalidate the other sections of the act.
| “ | While, however, we cannot agree to the proposition that this particular section is valid and constitutional, we do not regard it as such an essential part of the tariff act as to invalidate all its other provisions, and we therefore concur in the judgment of this Court affirming the judgments of the court below in the several cases.[2][4] | ” |
Dissenting opinions
There were no dissenting opinions.
Impact
Though it does not mention the decision by name, Field v. Clark upheld the logic presented earlier by Chief Justice John Marshall in Wayman v. Southard (1825), that Congress could delegate its non-legislative powers to other branches of the federal government. In his majority opinion in that case, Marshall held the following:
| “ | It will not be contended that Congress can delegate to the Courts, or to any other tribunals, powers which are strictly and exclusively legislative. But Congress may certainly delegate to others, powers which the legislature may rightfully exercise itself.[5][4] | ” |
In that opinion, Marshall also made an early reference to the nondelegation doctrine, which holds that Article I of the US Constitution assigned all legislative powers to the Congress and these cannot be delegated to any other branch. The ruling in Wayman v. Southard affirmed the right of Congress to delegate its subordinate duties, such as fact-finding, promulgation of specific regulations, and enforcement to other government entities, which paved the way for the rise of the administrative state.
About 100 years after Wayman v. Southard, the ruling in J.W. Hampton Jr. & Company v. United States (1928) established the intelligible principle test for determining whether Congress had violated the nondelegation doctrine. Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote the following:
| “ | If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to fix such rates is directed to conform, such legislative action is not a forbidden delegation of legislative power.[6][4] | ” |
In that opinion, Taft explicitly drew on the argument from Field v. Clark that the specific guidance Congress had provided the President in the Tariff Act of 1890 were sufficient to keep his actions within the bounds of discretionary power, and thus within the boundaries of delegated power.[6] The intelligible principle test has been used in every case involving the nondelegation doctrine of power since 1928 (See A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, Mistretta v. United States, and Whitman v. American Trucking Associations for examples).
See also
- Nondelegation doctrine
- Article I, United States Constitution
- Wayman v. Southard
- J.W. Hampton Jr. & Company v. United States
- A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
- Mistretta v. United States
- Whitman v. American Trucking Associations
- Separation of powers
- Rulemaking
- Administrative law
- Supreme Court of the United States
- History of the Supreme Court
External links
- Full Text of the Case via Justia
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Search Google News for this topic
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Archive.org, Full text of "The Tariff act of 1890, compared with the Tariff act of 1883 and the Mills bill", accessed December 12, 2017
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 FindLaw, Field v. Clark, accessed December 12, 2017
- ↑ Justia, Field v. Clark, accessed December 12, 2017
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ FindLaw, Wayman v. Southard, accessed November 18, 2017
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Justia, J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States, accessed December 13, 2017
| |||||||||||