Speech #520115829

If the power to do this thing exists in Congress under the commerce clause. it may be that the court would support it as they supported the levy of the 50 cents a head upon passengers in the celebrated headmoney cases. not as an exertion of the power to tax. but as an exertion of the right to regulate commerce. But it would be an abuse of the power. because it would be done. not as it was there. professedly in regulation of commerce. for that act was an act relating to immigration. but it would be done in abuse of the power. in covert concealment of the true purpose. It seems to me that if the power were to be found to exist. the honest constitutional way is to exert it in accordance with the nature of the power which is asserted.