Write an opinion on the following hypothetical case. Your opinion should be 8 - 12 pages, in normal font with normal margins. For you, previous cases are not to be seen as valid precedent pure and simple: you are not entitled to take Supreme Court rulings as simply correct. You must argue for your positions. Please cite accurately (page numbers in BLBA). Do not read cases beyond what we have covered in class. Your midterm is due in class on Wednesday, October 29, when we will have our moot court.
Imagine, in an alternate historical universe in which it is at least slightly politically plausible, sometime between 1898 and 1908:
The British suffer severe financial collapse and decide to negotiate a treaty for the chunk of land (in what is currently British Columbia) that separates Alaska from Washington state. The territory ceded to the U.S. is inhabited by a mix of people: native tribes, Chinese immigrants, and whites and blacks from a variety of backgrounds, including some elderly escaped slaves and their descendents. The territory is officially called the "Even More Far North Northwest Territory," shortened to "Emofannt." The treaty contains two important provisions (1) it grants to Congress the authority to determine the "civil and political status of inhabitants in the territory," and (2) it urges Congress to prohibit "harsh employment contracts aimed at the subjugation of minority populations."
Republicans in Congress propose the "Emofannt Organic Act," which sets up a territorial government, including a governor to be appointed by the President and a bicameral legislature to be elected by residents of the territory; makes current legal residents of Emofant U.S. citizens as well; abolishes "harsh employment contracts aimed at the subjugation of minority populations"; and establishes a series of duties on lumber and produce exported from the verdant and fertile valleys of the territory and imported into ports in any of the existing states. The idea of putting Emofannt on the track to statehood is raised during the debate but is never explicitly addressed in the Organic Act itself; most members of Congress assume privately that Emofant will never become a state because many of its inhabitants are not "of Anglo-Saxon stock." Acrimonious debate on all the provisions ensues. Democrats argue that the "Constitution follows the flag" and that Congress does not have the authority to exercise colonial power over territories. Southern Democrats object to the contract provisions as a back-door attack on labor practices in their own states. The bill passes by a narrow margin; voting is along sectional lines (representatives from southern and a few western states vote against the Act; the rest vote more or less in favor) and along party lines (Republicans vote for the Act, Democrats against, a smattering of northern Democrats excepted).
Buoyed by their success with the Emofannt Organic Act, Republicans propose a bill that would ban the interstate traffic in all goods produced by "harsh employment contracts aimed at the subjugation of minority populations" for a period of thirty days after the products are produced by minority laborers working under the terms of the contracts. The law also prohibits employers from employing corporal punishment in the workplace and from requiring laborers to sign contracts of longer duration than 5 years. In response to critics who argue that Congress doesn't have authority to pass the law, Republicans cite the Commerce Clause as well as the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Named the "Free Labor Protection Act" (FLPA) it passes by an even narrower margin than the Organic Act but nontetheless becomes valid law.
Much litigation ensues. In one case, Mr. Chipper Shipper, an importer in San Francisco, pays $1000 in import duties on a shipment of pumpkins and hardwood lumber from Emofant, but challenges duties on the grounds that Emofannt is covered by Article 1, §8's requirement that "all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." His case takes the form of a suit against the collector of the port of San Francisco, Fred Eater (dubbed "Freddy Pumpkin Eater" in the Demcratic press). A federal court agrees with Shipper's challenge, but the court's decision is handed down in 1900, before McKinley's reelection and before the Supreme Court decision in Downes v. Bidwell. Federal lawyers appeal and urge the Supreme Court to explicitly apply Downes to this case (now called Eater v. Shipper) as well.
In another case, this one coming out of Georgia, Mr. Boss M. Mann brings a suit in federal court to enjoin (prevent) enforcement of FLPA. Mann owns a large cotton and pumpkin plantation in Georgia and he employs laborers with contracts that do the following: bind the laborers (all black) to work for him for 10 years; require them to get his consent before they work for someone else; require them to sleep in locked stockades at night; allow him to inflict corporal punishment on them for disobedience. Mann argues that FLPA is an invalid extension of Congress's power over interstate commerce and an intrusion in employment relations, traditionally a realm of state police powers. He also argues that FLPA cannot be justified under either the 13th or 14th Amendment, since the system of labor, while harsh, is not chattel slavery and not the product of state action. Lower federal courts agree, and lawyers for the U.S. appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that the 13th Amendment allows for Congress to reach private acts of enslavement even when these acts are not structured by legalized slavery, that the reconstruction amendments express an expansive view of federal power to protect African-Americans and even allow for the prohibition of private behavior, and that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate and prohibit the transportation of items in interstate commerce as Congress sees fit.
The cases thus come to the Supreme Court as Eater v. Shipper and U.S. v. Mann,
and, miraculously, you have been confirmed to a seat on the Court even before
you have finished the current semester. Using only the cases we have read or
will have read by Oct. 28, how do you rule? You will want to discuss your
approach to constitutional interpretation, your approach to federalism, and
your sense of the intentions and significance of the reconstruction amendments
in an introductory preface to your opinion.
Note: in addition to the introductory preface, you will need to answer four questions: