The ''Head Money Cases'', 112 U.S. 580 (1884), also referred to as ''Edye v. Robertson'', were a group of cases decided together by the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Background
Pursuant to the
Immigration Act of 1882
The Immigration Act of 1882 was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on August 3, 1882. It imposed a head tax on non-citizens of the United States who came to American ports and restricted certain classes of people f ...
, officers from the
customhouse in the
Port of New York began collecting a tax from ships of fifty cents for each immigrant aboard. Multiple ship owners sued because they were transporting Dutch immigrants, and the
Netherlands
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, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
had a treaty with the United States that seemed to prohibit the tax.
Decision
The case established the precedent that
treaties
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal perso ...
, which are described in the
Supremacy Clause of the
US Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...
as "the supreme law of the land" equal to any domestic federal law, do not hold a privileged position above other acts of Congress. Hence, other laws affecting the "enforcement, modification, or repeal" of treaties are legitimate.
See also
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Passenger Cases
''Smith v. Turner; Norris v. Boston'', 48 U.S. (7 How.) 283 (1849), were two similar cases, argued together before the United States Supreme Court, which decided 5–4 that states do not have the right to impose a tax that is determined by the numb ...
: A similar case covering a head tax on British immigrants.
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 112
External links
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1884 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Waite Court
United States Treaty Clause case law
Netherlands–United States relations
Ellis Island
United States immigration and naturalization case law
Poll taxes
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