Abram P. Staples, Attorney General of Virginia, argued the cause and filed a brief for appellee.

Briefs were filed as amici curiae by Gregory Hankin, Osmond K. Fraenkel and Arthur Garfield Hays for the American Civil Liberties Union, and by Harold A. Stevens for the Workers Defense League, in support of appellant.

MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.

3

This appeal brings to this Court the question of the constitutionality of an act of Virginia,' which requires all passenger motor vehicle carriers, both interstate and intrastate,' to separate without discrimination the white and colored passengers in their motor buses so that contiguous seats will not be occupied by persons of different races at the same time. A violation of the requirement of separation by the carrier is a misdemeanor. The driver or other person in charge is directed and required to increase or decrease the space allotted to the respective races as may be necessary or proper and may require passengers to change their seats to comply with the allocation. The operator's failure to enforce the provisions is made a misdemeanor."

These regulations were applied to an interstate passenger, this appellant, on a motor vehicle then making an interstate run or trip. According to the statement of fact by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. appellant, who is a Negro, was traveling on a motor common car

1 Virginia Code of 1942, §§ 4097z to 4097dd inclusive. The sections are derived from an act of General Assembly of Virginia of 1930. Acts of Assembly, Va. 1930, p. 343.

2 Id., §§ 4097z, 4097m, 4097s; Morgan v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 24, 39, 34 S. E. 2d 491.

rier, operating under the above-mentioned statute, from Gloucester County, Virginia, through the District of Columbia, to Baltimore, Maryland, the destination of the bus. There were other passengers, both white and colored. On her refusal to accede to a request of the driver to move to a back seat, which was partly occupied by other colored passengers, so as to permit the seat that she vacated to be used by white passengers, a warrant was obtained and appellant was arrested, tried and convicted of a violation of § 4097dd of the Virginia Code. On a writ of error the conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. 184 Va. 24. The Court of Appeals interpreted the Virginia statute as applicable to appellant since the statute "embraces all motor vehicles and all

• "4097dd. Violation by passengers; misdemeanor; ejection.-All persons who fail while on any motor vehicle carrier, to take and occupy the seat or seats or other space assigned to them by the driver, operator or other person in charge of such vehicle, or by the person whose duty it is to take up tickets or collect fares from passengers therein, or who fail to obey the directions of any such driver, operator or other person in charge, as aforesaid, to change their seats from time to time as occasions require, pursuant to any lawful rule, regulation or custom in force by such lines as to assigning separate seats or other space to white and colored persons, respectively, having been first advised of the fact of such regulation and requested to conform thereto, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than five dollars nor more than twentyfive dollars for each offense. Furthermore, such persons may be ejected from such vehicle by any driver, operator or person in charge of said vehicle, or by any police officer or other conservator of the peace; and in case such persons ejected shall have paid their fares upon said vehicle, they shall not be entitled to the return of any part of same. For the refusal of any such passenger to abide by the request of the person in charge of said vehicle as aforesaid, and his consequent ejection from said vehicle, neither the driver, operator, person in charge, owner, manager nor bus company operating said vehicle shall be liable for damages in any court."

passengers, both interstate and intrastate.” The Court of Appeals refused to accept appellant's contention that the statute applied was invalid as a delegation of legislative power to the carrier by a concurrent holding "that no power is delegated to the carrier to legislate . . . The statute itself condemns the defendant's conduct as a violation of law and not the rule of the carrier." Id., at 38. No complaint is made as to these interpretations of the Virginia statute by the Virginia court."

The errors of the Court of Appeals that are assigned and relied upon by appellant are in form only two. The first is that the decision is repugnant to Clause 3, § 8, Article I of the Constitution of the United States, and the second the holding that powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment include the power to require an interstate motor passenger to occupy a seat restricted for the use of his race. Actually, the first question alone needs consideration for, if the statute unlawfully burdens interstate commerce, the reserved powers of the state will not validate it.1o 10

We think, as the Court of Appeals apparently did, that the appellant is a proper person to challenge the validity of this statute as a burden on commerce." If it is an invalid burden, the conviction under it would fail. The statute affects appellant as well as the transportation company. Constitutional protection against burdens on com

"Morgan v. Commonwealth, supra, 37. Cf. Smith v. State, 100 Tenn. 494, 46 S. W. 566; Alabama & Vicksburg R. Co. v. Morris, 103 Miss. 511, 60 So. 11; Southern R. Co. v. Norton, 112 Miss. 302, 73 So. 1.

8 Compare Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U. S. 312, 317; General Trading Co. v. Tax Comm'n, 322 U. S. 335, 337.

9 "Section 8. The Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

10 Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S. 92, 101–102.

11 Cf. Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 172, n. 1.

merce is for her benefit on a criminal trial for violation of the challenged statute. Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U. S. 152, 160; Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 463.

This Court frequently must determine the validity of state statutes that are attacked as unconstitutional interferences with the national power over interstate commerce. This appeal presents that question as to a statute that compels racial segregation of interstate passengers in vehicles moving interstate.12

The precise degree of a permissible restriction on state power cannot be fixed generally or indeed not even for one kind of state legislation, such as taxation or health or safety.13 There is a recognized abstract principle, however, that may be taken as a postulate for testing whether particular state legislation in the absence of action by Congress is beyond state power. This is that the state legislation is invalid if it unduly burdens that commerce in matters where uniformity is necessary-necessary in the constitutional sense of useful in accomplishing a permitted purpose." Where uniformity is essential for the functioning of commerce, a state may not interpose its local regulation." Too true it is that the principle lacks in precision. Although the quality of such a principle is abstract, its application to the facts of a situation created by the attempted enforcement of a statute brings about a specific determination as to whether or not the statute

12 When passing upon a rule of a carrier that required segregation of an interstate passenger, this Court said, "And we must keep in mind that we are not dealing with the law of a State attempting a regulation of interstate commerce beyond its power to make." Chiles v. Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co., 218 U. S. 71, 75.

13 Cf. Guin, White & Prince v. Henneford, 305 U. S. 434, 439; Mintz v. Baldwin, 289 U. S. 346, 352; Welch Co. v. New Hampshire, 306 U. S. 79, 84.

14 Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761, 760-71.

15 Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 319; Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352, 402; Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S. 1, 10.

in question is a burden on commerce.

Within the broad

limits of the principle, the cases turn on their own facts.

In the field of transportation, there has been a series of decisions which hold that where Congress has not acted and although the state statute affects interstate commerce, a state may validly enact legislation which has predominantly only a local influence on the course of commerce. It is equally well settled that, even where Con

16 Statutes or orders dealing with safety of operations: Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465 (Alabama statute requiring an examination and license of train engineers before operating in the state); Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96 (statute requiring examination of railroad employees as to vision and color blindness); New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628 (New York statute forbidding the use of furnaces or stoves in passenger cars and requiring guard-posts on railroad bridges); Erb v. Morasch, 177 U. S. 584 (municipal ordinance limiting speed of trains in city to 6 miles an hour); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280 (Georgia statute requiring electric headlights on locomotives); Morris v. Duby, 274 U. S. 135 (weight restrictions on motor carriers imposed by order of Oregon highway commission); Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374 (size and weight restrictions on trucks imposed by Texas statute); South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177 (statute restricting weight and size of motor carriers); Maurer v. Hamilton, 309 U.S. 598 (Pennsylvania statute forbidding the use of its highways to any vehicle carrying any other vehicle over the head of the operator of the vehicle); Terminal Assn. v. Trainmen, 318 U. S. 1 (Illinois statute requiring cabooses on freight trains).

Statutes or orders requiring local train service: Gladson v. Minnesota, 166 U. S. 427 (state statute requiring intrastate train to stop at county seat to take on and discharge passengers); Lake Shore & Michigan Southern R. Co. v. Ohio, 173 U. S. 285 (statute requiring three trains daily, if so many are run, to stop at each city containing over 3,000 inhabitants as applied to interstate trains); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. North Carolina Corporation Comm'n. 206 U. S. 1 (order regulating train service, particularly requiring train to permit connection with through trains at junction point); Missouri Pacific R. Co.

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