Lau Ow Bew v United States

Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144 U.S. 47 (1892), was a United States Supreme Court case. The ruling relied heavily on the Burlingame Treaty of 1868, the Angell Treaty of 1880, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the amendments to the Act in 1884. The case helped to establish the rights of the Chinese merchant class and informed future cases about the power of the Circuit Court of Appeals as well as the perception of Chinese immigrants. Two cases were decided before the 1884 amendments. In both cases, the court found that “the certificate mentioned in [section 6] is…not required as a means of restricting [Chinese merchants] coming [to the United States]” (Lau ow bew). In King v. Ho, the Court found that the certificate was not required as “a means of restrict[ing] [Chinese coming] as that would violate the freedom of movement of [Chinese] merchants’’ (King v.ho). The ruling was upheld by the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the original ruling.