Opinion of the Court. fer of the property used and employed in the business as stock in trade, but such transferred license shall not be held good for any longer time, or for any other place, than that for which it was originally issued." There are various subdivisions to this section not herein set forth, and they enumerate divers occupations and professions, the members of which are required to procure a license and to pay annually therefor the amounts stated in those subdivisions. The twelfth subdivision provides, among other things, that "all express companies doing business in this State shall pay in cities of fifteen thousand inhabitants or more a license tax of two hundred dollars; in cities of ten thousand to fifteen thousand inhabitants, one hundred dollars; in cities of five thousand to ten thousand inhabitants, seventy-five dollars; in cities of three to five thousand inhabitants, fifty dollars; in cities of one to three thousand inhabitants, twenty-five dollars; in towns and villages of less than one thousand and more than fifty inhabitants, ten dollars. Any express company violating this provision, and any person that knowingly acts as agent for any express company before it has paid the above tax, payable by such company, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars, or confined in the county jail not less than six months." In addition to the criminal penalty above set forth, section 10 provides that the payment of all licenses taxed may be enforced by the seizure and sale of property by the collector. The plaintiff in error assigns two grounds upon which he seeks for a reversal of the judgment of the state court. One is based upon the allegation that the statute, so far as regards the Southern Express Company or himself as its agent, violates the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution, in that it assumes to regulate interstate commerce. The second ground is that the statute is not sufficiently determinate, definite and certain in its character upon which to ascertain the amount to be paid for licenses. It may be here assumed that if the statute applied to the Opinion of the Court. express company in relation to its interstate business, it would be void as an attempted interference with or regulation of interstate commerce. The particular construction to be given to this state statute is a question for the state court to deal with, and in such a case as this we follow the construction given by the state court to the statutes of its own State. Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599; People v. Weaver, 100 U. S. 539, 541; Noble v. Mitchell, 164 U. S. 367, 372, and cases there cited. The Supreme Court of Florida has construed the ninth section of this act and has held in express terms that it does not apply to or affect in any manner the business of this company which is interstate in its character; that it applies to and af fects only its business which is done within the State, or is, as it is termed, "local" in its character, and it has held that under that statute so long as the express company confines its operations to express business that consists of interstate or foreign commerce, it is wholly exempt from the legislation in question. It has added, however, that under the provisions of the statute, if the company engage in business within the State of a local nature as distinguished from an interstate or foreign kind of commerce, it becomes subject to the statute so far only as concerns its local business, notwithstanding it may at the same time engage in interstate or foreign commerce. In other words, this statute as construed by the Supreme Court of Florida does not exempt the express company from taxation upon its business which is solely within the State, even though at the same time the same company may do a business which is interstate in its character, and that as to the latter kind of business the statute does not apply to or affect it. As thus construed we have no doubt as to the correctness of the decision that the act does not in any manner violate the Federal Constitution. The case of Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, is not in the slightest degree opposed to this view. The act which was held to be in violation of the Federal Constitution in that case prohibited the agent of a foreign express company from carrying on business at all in that State without first obtain Opinion of the Court. ing a license from the State. The company was thus prevented from doing any business, even of an interstate character, without obtaining the license in question. The act was held to be a regulation of interstate commerce in its application to corporations or associations engaged in that business, and that subject was held to belong exclusively to national and not state legislation. It has never been held, however, that when the business of the company which is wholly within the State, is but a mere incident to its interstate business, such fact would furnish any obstacle to the valid taxation by the State of the business of the company which is entirely local. So long as the regulation as to the license or taxation does not refer to and is not imposed upon the business of the company which is interstate, there is no interference with that commerce by the state statute. It was stated by Mr. Justice Bradley, in the course of his opinion in the Crutcher case, that: "Taxes or license fees in good faith imposed exclusively on express business carried on wholly within the State would be open to no such objection," viz., an objection that the tax or license was a regulation of or that it improperly affected interstate commerce. We have no doubt that this is a correct statement of the law in that regard. The statute herein differs from the cases where statutes upon this subject have been held void, because in those cases the statutes prohibited the doing of any business in the State whatever unless upon the payment of the fee or tax. It was said as to those cases that as the law made the payment of the fee or the obtaining of the license a condition to the right to do any business whatever, whether interstate or purely local, it was on that account a regulation of interstate commerce, and therefore void. Here, however, under the construction as given by the state court, the company suffers no harm from the provisions of the statute. It can conduct its interstate business without paying the slightest heed to the act, because it does not apply to or in any degree affect the company in regard to that portion of its business which it has the right to conduct without regulation from the State. The company in this case need take out no license and pay Opinion of the Court. no tax for doing interstate business, and the statute is therefore valid. The second ground for holding the statute void is that it is not sufficiently determinate, definite and certain in its character upon which to ascertain the amount to be paid for licenses. This ground furnishes no reason for interference by this court. Whether the statute be sufficiently determinate or certain in its character upon which to ascertain the amount to be paid for a license, is a question of the construction of the state statute which does not necessarily involve a Federal question, and the determination of the state court as to the proper construction and sufficiency of such a statute is conclusive upon us. The learned counsel for plaintiff in error is mistaken in assuming that this court has any more power than formerly to review, upon a writ of error from a state court, the determination of that court in regard to the particular construction to be given to the statutes of its own State. The cases of Horner v. United States, 143 U. S. 570, and Carey v. Houston & Texas Central Railway, 150 U. S. 170, have no bearing upon this question. They both refer to the jurisdiction of this court under the fifth section of the act of March 3, 1891, upon appeals or writs of error taken direct from the Circuit or District Courts of the United States to this court. By the last subdivision of section 5 of that act it is provided that: "Nothing in this act shall affect the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in cases appealed from the highest court of a State nor the construction of the statute providing for the review of such cases." The cases above cited originated in the Circuit Courts of the United States, and were brought direct by appeal or writ of error to this court. This case comes here by writ of error to the Supreme Court of a State, and our jurisdiction to review that judgment is embraced in section 709 of the Revised Statutes. In exercising jurisdiction under that section we do not review such a question as is here presented by plaintiff in error. Upon the construction given it by the state court the statute does not violate any provision of the Federal Constitution, and the judgment of that court is, therefore, Affirmed. Opinion of the Court. NOFIRE v. UNITED STATES. ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS. No. 578. Submitted December 15, 1896. Decided January 4, 1897. The fact that a marriage license has been issued carries with it a presumption that all statutory prerequisites thereto have been complied with, and one who claims to the contrary must affirmatively show the fact. Persons coming to a public office to transact business who find a person in charge of it and transacting its business in a regular way, are not bound to ascertain his authority to so act; but to them he is an officer de facto, to whose acts the same validity and the same presumptions attach as to those of an officer de jure. The evidence shows that the deceased sought, in his lifetime, to become a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, took all the steps he supposed necessary therefor, considered himself a citizen, and that the Cherokee Nation in his lifetime recognized him as a citizen and still asserts his citizenship. Held, that, under those circumstances, it must be adjudged that he was a citizen by adoption, and consequently that the jurisdiction over the offence charged is, by the laws of the United States and treaties with the Cherokee Nation, vested in the courts of that Nation. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Whitney for defendants in error. No appearance for plaintiffs in error. MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the court. Plaintiffs in error were indicted in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas for the murder of Fred. Rutherford "at the Cherokee Nation in the Indian country," on December 15, 1895. They were tried in May, 1896, found guilty by the jury, and, on June 12, the verdict having been sustained, they were sentenced to be hanged. The principal question, and the only one we deem it neces VOL. CLXIV-42 |