1837 – Supreme Court Rules in New York v. Miln That States May Take Precautionary Measures Against the Importation of “Paupers, Vagabonds, Convicts, and Infectious Articles”

“The New York laws were challenged in New York v. Miln (1837).
The defendant, a ship’s master, argued that the New York laws
obstructed interstate and foreign commerce. The Supreme Court, however,
sustained the laws as a legitimate exercise of the state’s police power.
Justice Philip P. Barbour stated that it was as competent and necessary
for a State to provide precautionary measures against the moral
pestilence of paupers, vagabonds, and possibly convicts, as it is to
guard against the physical pestilence which may arise from unsound or
infectious articles imported, or from a ship, the crew of which may be
laboring under an infectious disease.”