Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States
| Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States | |
|---|---|
| Submitted January 7, 1892 Argued January 7, 1892 Decided February 29, 1892 | |
| Full case name | Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States |
| Citations | 143 U.S. 457 (more) 12 S. Ct. 511; 36 L. Ed. 226; 1892 U.S. LEXIS 2036 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York |
| Holding | |
| The circuit court erred when it held that the contract hiring an English rector was within the prohibition of the statute, which disallowed a "person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration, of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, into the United States ... under contract or agreement ... to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States". | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | Brewer, joined by unanimous |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. chap. 164, 23 St. p. 332 | |
Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving Trinity Church in New York and its employment contract with an English Anglican priest. The court held that the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885 did not apply to the hiring of Christian ministers.
Although the statute’s text broadly prohibited contracts to import "labor or service of any kind", the court interpreted the law in light of what it viewed as Congress’s purpose. Justice David Josiah Brewer wrote that a thing may be "within the letter of the law" yet outside its intended scope, concluding that Congress did not intend to include Christian ministers within the prohibition on foreign contract labor.
The case became one of the Supreme Court's most frequently cited examples of the use of legislative intent to modify a statute's apparent plain meaning. It is also widely noted for Brewer’s dicta describing the United States as a "Christian nation", language that has drawn significant scholarly and judicial attention. Later justices, including Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, criticized the decision as a prominent illustration of non-textualist statutory interpretation.