Every day someone sends us the Jacobson v. Massachusetts, case – a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding Massachusetts’s legal authority to mandate vaccines to prevent transmission of small pox during an outbreak – to justify CV19 injection mandates. In this post, we want to explain what Jacobson was actually about and what it means for us, today.
WHAT WAS JACOBSON V. MASSACHUSETTS (1905) 197 U.S. 11
Overview: Massachusetts passed a law that provided that “the board of health of a city or town if, in its opinion, it is necessary for the public health or safety shall require and enforce the vaccination and revaccination of all the inhabitants thereof and shall provide them with the means of free vaccination” to all residents “twenty-one years of age and not under guardianship” and whoever of these “refuses or neglects to comply with such requirement shall forfeit five dollars,” meaning that the city or town could implement a free, mandatory shot program for adults 21 years or older, and anyone who refused or failed to comply with the requirement would have to pay $5. On July 17, 1902, Jacobsen “refused and neglected to comply with such requirement” because of his and his son’s previous adverse reactions to the smallpox vaccines, but also refused to pay the fine, arguing that the law “was in derogation of” the rights secured to him under the Preamble of the Constitution, violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution [due process, privileges and immunities, equal protection], and violated the “spirit of the Constitution.”
Legal Question & Findings:
Do states have the authority to implement mandatory shot – and other, e.g. quarantine – programs designed to protect the health and safety of its residents?
YES. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law was within the state’s “broad” police powers to protect the health and safety of its public, not affecting the citizens of any other state (See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U. S. 203; Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 95 U. S. 470; Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, 115 U. S. 661; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133) and could even create local bodies “to safeguard the public health and public safety.”
Are there any limits to a state’s “police power” to implement mandatory shot – and other – programs?
OF COURSE, YES. The Court also specifically held that this “acknowledged power of a local community to protect itself against an epidemic threatening the safety of all, might be exercised in particular circumstances and in reference to particular persons in such an arbitrary, unreasonable manner, or might go so far beyond what was reasonably required for the safety of the public, as to authorize or compel the courts to interfere for the protection of such persons.” (Wisconsin &c. R.R. Co. v. Jacobson, 179 U. S. 27, 179 U. S. 301; 1 Dillon Mun. Corp., 4th ed.,§§ 319 to 325, authorities in notes; Freund’s Police Power, § 63 et seq; Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 95 U. S. 471-473). The Court said, that while “[t]he mode or manner in which those results are to be accomplished is within the discretion of the State . . . no rule prescribed by a State, nor any regulation adopted by a local governmental [agency] shall contravene the Constitution of the United States or infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument. A local enactment or regulation, even if based on the acknowledged police powers of a State, must always yield in case of conflict with the exercise by the General Government of any power it possesses under the Constitution, or with any right which that instrument gives or secures, citing Ogden, supra; 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U. S. 210; Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227, 63 U. S. 243; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 613, 169 U. S. 626. In other words, the state – and any corresponding local agencies – can implement programs designed to “protect the health and safety of residents,” however, these programs must meet the “necessities of the case” and must not be prescribed or implemented in such an “arbitrary, unreasonable manner” or to go “so far beyond what is reasonably required for the safety of the public” or “conflict with the exercise of” any right under the Constitution of the United States. BOOM!.
Ruling
The USSC affirmed the lower court’s decision to keep Jacobson in jail unless and until he paid the $5 fine or was vaccinated because Massachusetts’s law and the locality’s mandatory shot program was a legal and constitutional exercise of the state’s police powers.
WHY JACOBSON DOES NOT APPLY TO MODERN-DAY CV19 SHOT MANDATES
The differences between the circumstances surrounding the Jacobson mandate and our current (attempted) mandates are glaring, but I want you to have them summarized, here, for any rapid-fire debates you must promise me you will have now that you are armed with this knowledge!
- The Jacobson mandate was limited to adults, only! There was a special exception to the vaccination requirement for incompetent adults and children (under 21).
- You could pay a $5 fee if you did not want to get a shot.
- If you paid the $5 fee, you could pay and go about your daily life. Not, “Pay $5…. and a double mask, double test, quarantine, isolate, all of the above.” You could actually opt out of the mandatory shot program!
- The smallpox shots in Jacobson were almost 100 years old and were considered “safe and effective” to prevent the transmission of the virus.
- 197 U.S. 24: “He would have considered this testimony of experts in connection with the facts, that for nearly a century, most of the members of the medical profession have regarded vaccination, repeated after intervals, as a preventive of smallpox; that, while they have recognized the possibility of injury to an individual from carelessness in the performance of it, or even, in a conceivable case, without carelessness, they generally have considered the risk of such an injury too small to be seriously weighed as against the benefits coming from the discreet and proper use of the preventive, and that not only the medical profession and the people generally have for a long time entertained these opinions, but legislatures and courts have acted upon them with general unanimity.”
- These shots are still in their clinical trials (originally announced to end the end of 2022/beginning of 2023). Jacobsen was decided in 1905 and has since been superseded by the Nuremberg Code; other national and international policies, codes, regulations, and agreements; United States’s Code, 21 U.S.C. 360bbb-3, the Emergency Use Authorization (“EUA”) statute, and state-specific laws, e.g. California Health & Safety Code § 24170 et seq., which govern and expressly prohibit human experimentation without full, voluntary, informed consent.
- Even though the US Supreme Court upheld the local shot program, it recognized that the state’s authority was not unbridled or without limitation:
- 197 U.S. 11: “While a local regulation, even if based on the acknowledged police power of a State, must always yield in case of conflict with the exercise by the General Government of any power it possesses under the Constitution, the mode or manner of exercising its police power is wholly within the discretion of the State so long as the Constitution of the United States is not contravened, or any right granted or secured thereby is not infringed, or not exercised in such an arbitrary and oppressive manner as to justify the interference of the courts to prevent wrong and oppression.”
- 197 U.S. 28: “We say necessities of the case because it might be that an acknowledged power of a local community to protect itself against an epidemic threatening the safety of all, might be exercised in particular circumstances and in reference to particular persons in such an arbitrary, unreasonable manner, or might go so far beyond what was reasonably required for the safety of the public, as to authorize or compel the courts to interfere for the protection of such persons. Wisconsin &c. R.R. Co. v. Jacobson, 179 U. S. 27, 179 U. S. 301; 1 Dillon Mun. Corp., 4th ed.,§§ 319 to 325, and authorities in notes; Freund’s Police Power, § 63 et seq.”
- 197 U.S. 28: “In Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 95 U. S. 471-473, this court recognized the right of a State to pass sanitary laws, laws for the protection of life, liberty, heath or property within its limits, laws to prevent persons and animals suffering under contagious or infectious diseases, or convicts, from coming within its borders. But as the laws there involved went beyond the necessity of the case and under the guise of exerting a police power invaded the domain of Federal authority, and violated rights secured by the Constitution, this court deemed it to be its duty to hold such laws invalid.”
- Our shots are not traditional vaccines! They, admittedly, do not prevent transmission and were designed and tested and intended be used to minimize symptoms and hospitalization.
- In the United States, every American has a constitutionally protected right to refuse medical treatment.
- Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
- Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990): a competent person has a constitutionally protected right to refuse lifesaving hydration and nutrition.
- In California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Colorado, New Jersey, Vermont and Maine you have the right to die, or to end your life or be voluntarily euthanized. In general, these laws refer to people with terminal illnesses and require this showing, first, in order to avoid criminal prosecution.
- https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/right-to-die-state
- In the United States, every American has a constitutionally protected right to refuse medical treatment.
CONCLUSION
Jacobson does not apply to justify “laws” (guidance, recommendations, mandates, “Executive Orders”) that attempt to force people of all ages to take new, still-under-investigation (experimental) medicine, where no opt outs are provided and the ability to work, move about the community, travel, and otherwise pursue Life, Liberty, and Happiness are otherwise precluded.
And this is why… #WEWILLNOTCOMPLY and we will #RESIST and #RISEUP.
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In POWER,
Your Dedicated FLTJ Team