ATLANTA MOTEL v. UNITED STATES, (1964)
379 U.S. 241 (1964)
Argued: October 5, 1964 Decided: December
14, 1964
MR. JUSTICE CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a declaratory
judgment action, 28 U.S.C. 2201 and 2202 (1958 ed.), attacking the
constitutionality of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. [379 U.S. 241,
243] 241, 243. 1 In
addition to declaratory relief the complaint sought an injunction restraining
the enforcement of the Act and damages against appellees based on allegedly
resulting injury in the event compliance was required. Appellees counterclaimed
for enforcement under 206 (a) of the Act and asked for a three-judge district
court under 206 (b). A three-judge court, empaneled under 206 (b) as well as 28
U.S.C. 2282 (1958 ed.), sustained the validity of the Act and issued a
permanent injunction on appellees' counterclaim restraining appellant from
continuing to violate the Act which remains in effect on order of MR. JUSTICE
BLACK, 85 S. Ct. 1. We affirm the judgment.
1. The
Factual Background and Contentions of the Parties.
The case comes here on
admissions and stipulated facts. Appellant owns and operates the Heart of
Atlanta Motel which has 216 rooms available to transient guests. The motel is
located on Courtland Street, two blocks from downtown Peachtree Street. It is
readily accessible to interstate highways 75 and 85 and state highways 23 and
41. Appellant solicits patronage from outside the State of Georgia through
various national advertising media, including magazines of national
circulation; it maintains over 50 billboards and highway signs within the
State, soliciting patronage for the motel; it accepts convention trade from
outside Georgia and approximately 75% of its registered guests are from out of
State. Prior to passage of the Act the motel had followed a practice of
refusing to rent rooms to Negroes, and it alleged that it intended to continue
to do so. In an effort to perpetuate that policy this
suit was filed.
The appellant contends
that Congress in passing this Act exceeded its power to regulate commerce under
Art. I, [379 U.S. 241,
244] 8, cl. 3, of the Constitution of the United States; that the Act
violates the Fifth Amendment because appellant is deprived of the right to
choose its customers and operate its business as it wishes, resulting in a
taking of its liberty and property without due process of law and a taking of
its property without just compensation; and, finally, that by requiring
appellant to rent available rooms to Negroes against its will, Congress is
subjecting it to involuntary servitude in contravention of the Thirteenth
Amendment.
The appellees counter
that the unavailability to Negroes of adequate accommodations interferes
significantly with interstate travel, and that Congress, under the Commerce
Clause, has power to remove such obstructions and restraints; that the Fifth
Amendment does not forbid reasonable regulation and that consequential damage
does not constitute a "taking" within the meaning of that amendment;
that the Thirteenth Amendment claim fails because it is entirely frivolous to
say that an amendment directed to the abolition of human bondage and the
removal of widespread disabilities associated with slavery places
discrimination in public accommodations beyond the reach of both federal and
state law.
At the trial the
appellant offered no evidence, submitting the case on the pleadings, admissions
and stipulation of facts; however, appellees proved the refusal of the motel to
accept Negro transients after the passage of the Act. The District Court
sustained the constitutionality of the sections of the Act under attack ( 201 (a), (b) (1) and (c) (1)) and issued a permanent
injunction on the counterclaim of the appellees. It restrained the appellant
from "[r]efusing to accept Negroes as guests in
the motel by reason of their race or color" and
from "[m]aking any distinction whatever upon the
basis of race or color in the availability of the goods, services,
facilities, [379
U.S. 241, 245] privileges, advantages or accommodations offered or made available
to the guests of the motel, or to the general public, within or upon any of the
premises of the Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc."
2. The
History of the Act.
Congress first evidenced
its interest in civil rights legislation in the Civil Rights or Enforcement Act
of April 9, 1866. 2 There
followed four Acts, 3 with a
fifth, the Civil Rights Act of March 1, 1875, 4 culminating
the series. In 1883 this Court struck down the public accommodations sections
of the 1875 Act in the Civil Rights Cases,109 U.S. 3 . No major legislation in this
field had been enacted by Congress for 82 years when the Civil Rights Act of
1957 5 became
law. It was followed by the Civil Rights Act of 1960. 6 Three
years later, on June 19, 1963, the late President Kennedy called for civil
rights legislation in a message to Congress to which he attached a proposed
bill. Its stated purpose was
"to promote the general welfare by
eliminating discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin
in . . . public accommodations through the exercise by Congress of the powers
conferred upon it . . . to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments, to regulate commerce among the several States, and to
make laws necessary and proper to execute the powers conferred upon it by the
Constitution." H. R. Doc. No. 124, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., at 14. [379 U.S. 241,
246]
Bills
were introduced in each House of the Congress, embodying the President's
suggestion, one in the Senate being S. 1732 7 and one in the House, H. R.
7152. However, it was not until July 2, 1964, upon the recommendation of
President Johnson, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, here under attack, was
finally passed.
After extended hearings
each of these bills was favorably reported to its respective house, H. R. 7152
on November 20, 1963, H. R. Rep. No. 914, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., and S. 1732 on
February 10, 1964, S. Rep. No. 872, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. Although each bill
originally incorporated extensive findings of fact these were eliminated from
the bills as they were reported. The House passed its bill in January 1964 and
sent it to the Senate. Through a bipartisan coalition of Senators Humphrey and
Dirksen, together with other Senators, a substitute was worked out in informal
conferences. This substitute was adopted by the Senate and sent to the House
where it was adopted without change. This expedited procedure prevented the
usual report on the substitute bill in the Senate as well as a Conference
Committee report ordinarily filed in such matters. Our only frame of reference
as to the legislative history of the Act is, therefore, the hearings, reports
and debates on the respective bills in each house.
The Act as finally
adopted was most comprehensive, undertaking to prevent through peaceful and
voluntary settlement discrimination in voting, as well as in places of
accommodation and public facilities, federally secured programs and in
employment. Since Title II is the only portion under attack here, we confine
our consideration to those public accommodation provisions. [379 U.S. 241,
247]
* * *
4. Application
of Title II to Heart of Atlanta Motel.
It is admitted that the operation of the motel brings it within
the provisions of 201 (a) of the Act and that appellant refused to provide
lodging for transient Negroes because of their race or color and that it
intends to continue that policy unless restrained.
The sole question posed is, therefore, the constitutionality of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as applied to these facts. The legislative history
of the Act indicates that Congress based the Act on 5 and the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as its power to regulate interstate
commerce under Art. I, 8, cl. 3, of the Constitution. [379 U.S. 241, 250]
The Senate Commerce Committee made it quite clear that the
fundamental object of Title II was to vindicate "the deprivation of
personal dignity that surely accompanies denials of equal access to public
establishments." At the same time, however, it noted that such an
objective has been and could be readily achieved "by congressional action
based on the commerce power of the Constitution." S. Rep. No. 872, supra,
at 16-17. Our study of the legislative record, made in the light of prior
cases, has brought us to the conclusion that Congress possessed ample power in
this regard, and we have therefore not considered the other grounds relied
upon. This is not to say that the remaining authority upon which it acted was
not adequate, a question upon which we do not pass, but merely that since the
commerce power is sufficient for our decision here we have considered it alone.
Nor is 201 (d) or 202, having to do with state action, involved here and we do
not pass upon either of those sections.
* * *
. . . We shall
not burden this opinion with further details since the voluminous testimony
presents overwhelming evidence that discrimination by hotels and motels impedes
interstate travel.
7. The
Power of Congress Over Interstate Travel.
The power of Congress to deal
with these obstructions depends on the meaning of the Commerce Clause. Its
meaning was first enunciated 140 years ago by the great [379
U.S. 241, 254] Chief Justice John Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), in
these words:
"The subject to be regulated
is commerce; and . . . to ascertain the extent of the power, it becomes
necessary to settle the meaning of the word. The counsel for the appellee would
limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities .
. . but it is something more: it is intercourse . . . between nations, and
parts of nations, in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules
for carrying on that intercourse. [At 189-190.]. . . .
.
"To what commerce does this
power extend? The constitution informs us, to commerce `with foreign nations,
and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.'
"It has, we believe, been
universally admitted, that these words comprehend every species of commercial
intercourse . . . . No sort of trade can be carried on
. . . to which this power does not extend. [At 193-194.] . . . .
"The subject to which the
power is next applied, is to commerce `among the several States.' The word
`among' means intermingled . . . .
". . . [I]t may very
properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one. . . . The genius and character of the whole government
seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the . . . internal concerns
[of the Nation] which affect the States generally; but not to those which are
completely within a particular State, which do not
affect other States, and with which it is not necessary [379
U.S. 241, 255] to interfere, for the purpose of executing
some of the general powers of the government. [At 194-195.] . . . . .
"We are now arrived at the
inquiry - What is this power?
"It is the power to
regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.
This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be
exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are
prescribed in the constitution. . . . If, as has
always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress . . . is plenary as to
those objects [specified in the Constitution], the power over commerce . . . is
vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having
in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are
found in the constitution of the United States. The wisdom and the discretion
of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their
constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances, as
that, for example, of declaring war, the sole restraints on which they have relied,
to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must
often rely solely, in all representative governments. [At 196-197.]"
In
short, the determinative test of the exercise of power by the Congress under
the Commerce Clause is simply whether the activity sought to be regulated is
"commerce which concerns more States than one" and has a real and
substantial relation to the national interest. Let us now turn to this facet of
the problem.
That the "intercourse"
of which the Chief Justice spoke included the movement of persons through
more [379 U.S. 241, 256] States than one
was settled as early as 1849, in the Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, where Mr.
Justice McLean stated: "That the transportation of passengers is a part of
commerce is not now an open question." At 401. Again in 1913 Mr. Justice
McKenna, speaking for the Court, said: "Commerce among the States, we have
said, consists of intercourse and traffic between their citizens, and includes
the transportation of persons and property." Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S.
308, 320 . And only four years later in 1917 in Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S.
470 , Mr. Justice Day held for the Court:
"The transportation of
passengers in interstate commerce, it has long been settled, is within the
regulatory power of Congress, under the commerce clause of the Constitution,
and the authority of Congress to keep the channels of interstate commerce free
from immoral and injurious uses has been frequently sustained, and is no longer
open to question." At 491.
Nor does
it make any difference whether the transportation is commercial in character.
Id., at 484-486. In Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S.
373 (1946), Mr. Justice Reed observed as to the modern movement of
persons among the States:
"The recent changes in
transportation brought about by the coming of automobiles [do] not seem of
great significance in the problem. People of all races travel today more
extensively than in 1878 when this Court first passed upon state regulation of
racial segregation in commerce. [It but] emphasizes the soundness of this
Court's early conclusion in Hall v. DeCuir, 95 U.S.
485 ." At 383.
The same
interest in protecting interstate commerce which led Congress to deal with
segregation in interstate[379 U.S. 241, 257] carriers
and the white-slave traffic has prompted it to extend the exercise of its power
to gambling, Lottery Case, 188 U.S.
321 (1903); to criminal enterprises, Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432(1925);
to deceptive practices in the sale of products, Federal Trade Comm'n v. Mandel Bros., Inc., 359 U.S.
385 (1959); to fraudulent security transactions, Securities & Exchange Comm'n v. Ralston Purina Co., 346 U.S.
119 (1953); to misbranding of drugs, Weeks v. United States, 245 U.S.
618 (1918); to wages and hours, United
States, v. Darby, 312 U.S.
100 (1941); to members of labor unions, Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937);
to crop control, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S.
111 (1942); to discrimination against shippers, United States v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 333 U.S.
169 (1948); to the protection of small business from injurious price
cutting, Moore v. Mead's Fine Bread Co., 348 U.S.
115 (1954); to resale price maintenance, Hudson Distributors, Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 377 U.S.
386 (1964), Schwegmann v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S.
384 (1951); to professional football, Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U.S.
445 (1957); and to racial discrimination by owners and managers of
terminal restaurants. Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454(1960).
That Congress was legislating
against moral wrongs in many of these areas rendered its enactments no less
valid. In framing Title II of this Act Congress was also dealing with what it
considered a moral problem. But that fact does not detract from the
overwhelming evidence of the disruptive effect that racial discrimination has
had on commercial intercourse. It was this burden which empowered Congress to enact
appropriate legislation, and, given this basis for the exercise of its power,
Congress was not restricted by the fact that the particular
obstruction to interstate commerce with which it was dealing was also
deemed a moral and social wrong. [379 U.S. 241, 258]
It is said that the operation of
the motel here is of a purely local character. But, assuming this to be true,
"[i]f it is interstate commerce that feels the
pinch, it does not matter how local the operation which applies the
squeeze." United States v. Women's
Sportswear Mfrs. Assn., 336 U.S.
460, 464 (1949). See Labor Board
v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., supra. As Chief Justice Stone put it
in United States v. Darby, supra:
"The power of Congress over
interstate commerce is not confined to the regulation of commerce among the
states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate
commerce or the exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation
of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise
of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316,
421." At 118.
Thus the
power of Congress to promote interstate commerce also includes the power to
regulate the local incidents thereof, including local activities in both the
States of origin and destination, which might have a substantial and harmful
effect upon that commerce. One need only examine the evidence which we have
discussed above to see that Congress may - as it has - prohibit racial
discrimination by motels serving travelers, however "local" their
operations may appear.
Nor does the Act deprive
appellant of liberty or property under the Fifth Amendment. The commerce power
invoked here by the Congress is a specific and plenary one authorized by the
Constitution itself. The only questions are: (1) whether Congress had a rational
basis for finding that racial discrimination by motels affected commerce, and
(2) if it had such a basis, whether the means it selected to eliminate that
evil are reasonable and appropriate. [379 U.S. 241, 259] If
they are, appellant has no "right" to select its guests as it sees
fit, free from governmental regulation.
There is nothing novel about such legislation. Thirty-two States8 now
have it on their books either by statute or executive order and many cities
provide such regulation. Some of these Acts go back fourscore years. It has
been repeatedly held by this Court that such laws [379 U.S.
241, 260] do not violate the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Perhaps the first such holding was in the Civil Rights
Cases themselves, where Mr. Justice Bradley for the Court inferentially found
that innkeepers, "by the laws of all the States, so far as we are aware,
are bound, to the extent of their facilities, to furnish proper accommodation
to all unobjectionable persons who in good faith apply for them." At 25.
As we have pointed out, 32 States
now have such provisions and no case has been cited to us where the attack on a
state statute has been successful, either in federal or state courts. Indeed,
in some cases the Due Process and Equal Protection Clause objections have been
specifically discarded in this Court. Bob-Lo
Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 333 U.S. 28,
34 . n. 12 (1948). As a result the
constitutionality of such state statutes stands unquestioned. "The
authority of the Federal Government over interstate commerce does not
differ," it was held in United
States v. Rock Royal Co-op., Inc., 307 U.S.
533 (1939), "in extent or character from that retained by the
states over intrastate commerce." At 569-570. See also Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S.
503 (1944).
It is doubtful if in the long run
appellant will suffer economic loss as a result of the
Act. Experience is to the contrary where discrimination is completely
obliterated as to all public accommodations. But whether this be true or not is
of no consequence since this Court has specifically held that the fact that a
"member of the class which is regulated may suffer economic losses not
shared by others . . . has never been a barrier" to such legislation. Bowles v. Willingham, supra, at 518. Likewise in a long line of cases this Court has rejected the
claim that the prohibition of racial discrimination in public accommodations
interferes with personal liberty. See District
of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 346 U.S. [379 U.S.
241, 261] 100 (1953), and cases there cited, where we
concluded that Congress had delegated law-making power to the District of
Columbia "as broad as the police power of a state" which included the
power to adopt "a law prohibiting discriminations against Negroes by the
owners and managers of restaurants in the District of Columbia." At 110.
Neither do we find any merit in the claim that the Act is a taking of property
without just compensation. The cases are to the contrary. See Legal Tender
Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 551 (1870); Omnia
Commercial Co. v. United States, 261 U.S.
502 (1923); United States v.
Central Eureka Mining Co., 357 U.S.
155 (1958).
We find no merit in the remainder
of appellant's contentions, including that of "involuntary
servitude." As we have seen, 32 States prohibit racial discrimination in
public accommodations. These laws but codify the common-law innkeeper rule
which long predated the Thirteenth Amendment. It is difficult to believe that
the Amendment was intended to abrogate this principle. Indeed, the opinion of
the Court in the Civil Rights Cases is to the contrary as we have seen, it having noted with approval the laws of "all the
States" prohibiting discrimination. We could not say that the requirements
of the Act in this regard are in any way "akin to African slavery." Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S.
328, 332 (1916).
We, therefore, conclude that the
action of the Congress in the adoption of the Act as applied here to a motel
which concededly serves interstate travelers is within the power granted it by
the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as interpreted by this Court for 140
years. It may be argued that Congress could have pursued other methods to
eliminate the obstructions it found in interstate commerce caused by racial
discrimination. But this is a matter of policy that rests entirely with the
Congress not with the courts. How obstructions in commerce [379
U.S. 241, 262] may be removed - what means are to be
employed - is within the sound and exclusive discretion of the Congress. It is
subject only to one caveat - that the means chosen by it must be reasonably
adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution. We cannot say that its choice
here was not so adapted. The Constitution requires no more.
Affirmed.