Missouri vs.

Holland- 1920

Facts of the Case: In December 1916, the United States and Great Britain entered into a treaty to protect
a number of migratory birds in the U.S. and Canada. Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in
1918 in order to facilitate enforcement of the treaty. When Ray P. Holland, the U.S. Game Warden,
threatened to arrest citizens of Missouri for violating the Act, the state of Missouri challenged the treaty.

ISSUE: WON the treaty infringe upon rights reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment?

HELD/RATIO: No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that the national interest in protecting the wildlife
could be protected only by national action. The Court noted that the birds the government sought to
protect had no permanent habitats within individual states and argued that "[b]ut for the treaty and the
statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with." The Court thus upheld the exercise of
the treaty power and thus found no violation of the Tenth Amendment.

Summary of Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 40 S. Ct. 382, 64 L. Ed. 641 (1920).

Facts

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed a treaty between the United States and Great Britain that provided
for the protection of several species of migratory bird. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was later enacted to
give effect to the convention. The Act prohibited the killing, capturing, or selling of any birds included in
the terms of the treaty.

The State of Missouri brought this lawsuit to prevent Holland (D), a game warden under the authority of
the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, from enforcing the Act. Missouri contended that the law
was an unconstitutional interference with the state’s Tenth Amendment rights and an invasion of the
state’s sovereign rights.

The District Court sustained a motion to dismiss by the United States, holding that the Act was
constitutional. The state of Missouri appealed.

Issue: Does Congress have the power to enact a statute in order to give effect to a treaty
authorized under the Executive’s treaty power (Article II Section 2), if that statute
standing alone would be an unconstitutional interference with states’ rights under the
Tenth Amendment?

Holding and Rule of Law (Holmes)

• Yes. Congress has the power to give effect to a treaty authorized under the Executive’s treaty
power (Article II Section 2) through legislation, even if that legislation standing alone would be
an unconstitutional interference with States’ rights under the Tenth Amendment.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is valid under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution as a necessary and
proper means of effectuating the treaty. The treaty and statute do not infringe property rights or
sovereign powers respecting such birds reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment.

The treaty-making power is not limited to what may be done by an unaided act of Congress with respect
to rights reserved to the States. A treaty becomes the supreme law of the land and preempts those areas
typically reserved to the States by the Constitution.

Congress can constitutionally enact a statute to enforce a treaty even if the statute by itself is
unconstitutional. The Tenth Amendment is irrelevant here because the power to make treaties is
delegated expressly. Under the Constitution, the President has the power to make treaties, which then
become part of the supreme law of the land. If a treaty is valid, Congress has the power to enact
legislation that is a necessary and proper means to enforce the treaty under the Necessary and Proper
Clause. Acts of Congress are the supreme law of the land when made in pursuance of the Constitution.
There are qualifications to the treaty-making power, but they must be determined by looking at the facts
of each case. There are situations that require national action which an act of Congress could not deal
with, but which a treaty enforced with a congressional act could. In these cases, joint action under
international law is the best solution. Because neither Missouri nor any other state acting alone have the
power to adequately control the problem connected with the migratory birds, this is a situation which
requiring national action.

Disposition Judgment affirmed.

HOLMES, J. This is a bill in equity brought by the State of Missouri to prevent a game warden of the
United States from attempting to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, and the
regulations made by the Secretary of Agriculture in pursuance of the same. The ground of the bill is that
the statute is an unconstitutional interference with the rights reserved to the States by the Tenth
Amendment, and that the acts of the defendant done and threatened under that authority invade the
sovereign right of the State and contravene its will manifested in statutes. The State also alleges a
pecuniary interest, as owner of the wild birds within its borders and otherwise, admitted by the
government to be sufficient, but it is enough that the bill is a reasonable and proper means to assert the
alleged quasi sovereign rights of a State. A motion to dismiss was sustained by the district court on the
ground that the act of Congress is constitutional. The State appeals.

On December 8, 1916, a treaty between the United States and Great Britain was proclaimed by the
President. It recited that many species of birds in their annual migrations traversed certain parts of the
United States and of Canada, that they were of great value as a source of food and in destroying insects
injurious to vegetation, but were in danger of extermination through lack of adequate protection. It
therefore provided for specified closed seasons and protection in other forms, and agreed that the two
powers would take or propose to their law-making s bodies the necessary measures for carrying the treaty
out. The above mentioned Act of July 3, 1918, entitled an act to give effect to the convention, prohibited
the killing, capturing or selling any of the migratory birds included in the terms of the treaty except as
permitted by regulations compatible with those terms, to be made by the Secretary of Agriculture.
Regulations were proclaimed on July 31, and October 25, 1918. It is unnecessary to go into any details,
because, as we have said, the question raised is the general one whether the treaty and statute are void
as an interference with the rights reserved to the States.

To answer this question it is not enough to refer to the Tenth Amendment, reserving the powers not
delegated to the United States, because by Article II, §2, the power to make treaties is delegated
expressly, and by Article VI treaties made under the authority of the United States, along with the
Constitution and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, are declared the supreme law of
the land. If the treaty is valid there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute under Article I, §S,
as a necessary and proper means to execute the powers of the Government. The language of the
Constitution as to the supremacy of treaties being general, the question before us is narrowed to an
inquiry into the ground upon which the present supposed exception is placed.

It is said that a treaty cannot be valid if it infringes the Constitution, that there are limits, therefore, to the
treaty-making power, and that one such limit is that what an act of Congress could not do unaided, in
derogation of the powers reserved to the States, a treaty cannot do. An earlier act of Congress that
attempted by itself and not in pursuance of a treaty to regulate the killing of migratory birds within the
States had been held bad in the District Court. United States v. Shauver, 214 Fed. Rep. lS4; United States
v. McCullagh, 221 Fed. Rep. 288. Those decisions were supported by arguments that migratory birds were
owned by the States in their sovereign capacity for the benefit of their people, and that under cases like
Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U. S. 519, this control was one that Congress had no power to displace. The
same argument is supposed to apply now with equal force.

Whether the two cases cited were decided rightly or not they cannot be accepted as a test of the treaty
power. Acts of Congress are the supreme law of the land only when made in pursuance of the
Constitution, while treaties are declared to be so when made under the authority of the United States. It is
open to question whether the authority of the United States means more than the formal acts prescribed
to make the convention. We do not mean to imply that there are no qualifications to the treaty making
power; but they must be ascertained in a different way. It is obvious that there may be matters of the
sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty
followed by such an act could, and it is not lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring national action,
"a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government" is not to be found.
Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U. S. 14. What was said in that case with regard to the powers of the States
applies.with equal force to the powers of the nation in cases where the States individually are incompetent
to act. We are not yet discussing the particular case before us but only are considering the validity of the
test proposed. . . . The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the
Constitution. The only question is whether it is forbidden by some invisible radiation from the general
terms of the Tenth Amendment. We must consider what this country has become in deciding what that
amendment has reserved.

The State as we have intimated founds its claim of exclusive authority upon an assertion of title to
migratory birds, an assertion that is embodied in statute. No doubt it is true that as between a State and
its inhabitants the State may regulate the killing and sale of such birds, but it does not follow that its
authority is exclusive of paramount powers. To put the claim of the State upon title is to lean upon a
slender reed. Wild birds are not in the possession of anyone; and possession is the beginning of
ownership. The whole foundation of the State's rights is the presence within their jurisdiction of birds that
yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another State and in a week a thousand miles away. If we
are to be accurate we can- l not put the case of the State upon higher ground than that the treaty deals
with creatures that for the moment are within the state borders, that it must be carried out by officers of
the United States within the same territory, and that but for the treaty the State would be free to regulate
this subject itself.

As most of the laws of the United States are carried out within the States and as many of them deal with
matters which in the silence of such laws the State might regulate such general grounds are not enough to
support Missouri's claim. Valid treaties of course "are as binding within the territorial limits of the States
as they are elsewhere throughout the dominion of the United States." Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U. S. 678.
No doubt the great body of private relations usually fall within the control of the State, but a treaty may
override its power. We do not have to invoke the later developments of constitutional law for this
proposition; it was recognized as early as Ho Kirk v. Bell, 3 Cranch, 454, with regard to statutes of
limitation, and even earlier, as to confiscation in Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199.... Further illustration seems
unnecessary, and it only remains to consider the application of established rules to the present case.

Here a national interest of very nearly the first magnitude is involved. It can be protected only by national
action in concert with that of another power. The subject matter is only transitory within the State and has
no permanent habitat therein. But for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any
powers to deal with. We see nothing in the Constitution that compels the government to sit by while a
food supply is cut off and the protectors of our forests and our crops are destroyed. It is not sufficient to
truly upon the States. The reliance is valid and were it otherwise, the question is wheth the United States
is forbidden to act. We are of opinion that the treaty and statute must be upheld.
Decree affirmed.
Justices VAN DEVANTER and PITNEY dissented.

The Case Of FPJ

Section 2, Article VII, of the 1987 Constitution expresses:

"No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a
registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and
a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election."

The term "natural-born citizens," is defined to include "those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth
without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship."27

The date, month and year of birth of FPJ appeared to be 20 August 1939 during the regime of the 1935
Constitution. Through its history, four modes of acquiring citizenship - naturalization, jus soli, res judicata
and jus sanguinis28 – had been in vogue. Only two, i.e., jus soli and jus sanguinis, could qualify a person
to being a "natural-born" citizen of the Philippines. Jus soli, per Roa vs. Collector of Customs29 (1912), did
not last long. With the adoption of the 1935 Constitution and the reversal of Roa in Tan Chong vs.
Secretary of Labor30 (1947), jus sanguinis or blood relationship would now become the primary basis of
citizenship by birth.
. An accepted principle of international law dictated that a change in sovereignty, while resulting in an
abrogation of all political laws then in force, would have no effect on civil laws, which would remain
virtually intact.

The Treaty of Paris was entered into on 10 December 1898 between Spain and the United States.21 Under
Article IX of the treaty, the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories ceded
to the United States would be determined by its Congress -

"Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by the
present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty may remain in such territory or may remove
therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the right to sell or
dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they shall also have the right to carry on their
industry, commerce, and professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws as are
applicable to foreigners. In case they remain in the territory they may preserve their allegiance to
the Crown of Spain by making, before a court of record, within a year from the date of the
exchange of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance;
in default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the
nationality of the territory in which they reside.

Thus –

"The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the
United States shall be determined by the Congress."22

Upon the ratification of the treaty, and pending legislation by the United States Congress on the subject,
the native inhabitants of the Philippines ceased to be Spanish subjects. Although they did not become
American citizens, they, however, also ceased to be "aliens" under American laws and were thus issued
passports describing them to be citizens of the Philippines entitled to the protection of the United States.

The term "citizens of the Philippine Islands" appeared for the first time in the Philippine Bill of 1902, also
commonly referred to as the Philippine Organic Act of 1902, the first comprehensive legislation of the
Congress of the United States on the Philippines -

".... that all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein, who were Spanish
subjects on the 11th day of April, 1891, and then resided in said Islands, and their children born
subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such
entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their
allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between
the United States and Spain, signed at Paris, December tenth eighteen hundred and ninety
eight."23

Under the organic act, a "citizen of the Philippines" was one who was an inhabitant of the Philippines, and
a Spanish subject on the 11th day of April 1899. The term "inhabitant" was taken to include 1) a native-
born inhabitant, 2) an inhabitant who was a native of Peninsular Spain, and 3) an inhabitant who obtained
Spanish papers on or before 11 April 1899.24

Controversy arose on to the status of children born in the Philippines from 11 April 1899 to 01 July 1902,
during which period no citizenship law was extant in the Philippines. Weight was given to the view,
articulated in jurisprudential writing at the time, that the common law principle of jus soli, otherwise also
known as the principle of territoriality, operative in the United States and England, governed those born in
the Philippine Archipelago within that period