252 U.S. 416, 40 S. Ct. 382, 64 L. Ed. 641 (1920)
The State of Missouri brought a bill in equity against a United States game warden seeking to prevent enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, and regulations made by the Secretary of Agriculture.1
Missouri asserted that the statute unconstitutionally interfered with rights reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment and invaded the state's sovereign rights as shown in its statutes.2 The state also claimed a pecuniary interest as owner of the wild birds within its borders.3
A treaty between the United States and Great Britain was proclaimed on December 8, 1916.4 The treaty noted that migratory birds traversing the United States and Canada were valuable but in danger of extermination and provided for close seasons and other protections while committing the parties to necessary measures through their legislatures.5
Congress enacted the Migratory Bird Treaty Act on July 3, 1918, to implement the treaty.6 The act banned the killing, capturing, or selling of covered migratory birds except as allowed by Secretary of Agriculture regulations, which were issued on July 31 and October 25, 1918.7
The district court granted a motion to dismiss the bill, holding the act constitutional, and Missouri appealed to the Supreme Court.8
Whether the treaty between the United States and Great Britain proclaimed on December 8, 1916, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, are void as an interference with the rights reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment?9
Treaties made under the authority of the United States are declared the supreme law of the land by Article VI. The treaty-making power is delegated expressly by Article II, Section 2. This power extends to matters of sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty followed by such an act could. This is particularly true where the states individually are incompetent to act. The Tenth Amendment does not limit treaties in the same manner as it limits acts of Congress made only in pursuance of the Constitution.10
No. The treaty between the United States and Great Britain proclaimed on December 8, 1916, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, address a national interest of very nearly the first magnitude that can be protected only by national action in concert with that of another power.11 The subject matter involves migratory birds that traverse parts of the United States and of Canada, are valuable as a source of food and in destroying insects injurious to vegetation, yet are in danger of extermination through lack of adequate protection, and are only transitorily within the State of Missouri with no permanent habitat therein.12
Missouri founds its claim of exclusive authority upon an assertion of title to migratory birds embodied in statute, but, as between a state and its inhabitants, the state may regulate the killing and sale of such birds without its authority being exclusive of paramount powers.13 Wild birds are not in the possession of anyone, and possession is the beginning of ownership, so the whole foundation of the state's rights rests on the presence within its borders of birds that yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another state, and in a week a thousand miles away.14
The treaty does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the Constitution, and the only question is whether it is forbidden by some invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment.15 When the Constitution is read in light of the nation's whole experience, rather than merely what was said a hundred years ago, it is not sufficient to rely upon the states because the reliance is vain where the subject matter requires national action that states individually are incompetent to undertake effectively.16
The treaty and statute must be upheld because nothing in the Constitution compels the Government to sit by while a food supply is cut off and the protectors of forests and crops are destroyed.17