The latter epidemic killed the four-year-old son, Frank Robert, of Franklin Pierce, who would later be President of the United States when the Carriage of Passengers Act would pass.

The migrants, many of them on the verge of death, with no money and no food, were packed very densely into ships headed across the Atlantic Ocean to the North America.

[14][15][16][17] The Irish emigration, and in particular the cramped and unhygienic conditions of transportation, were believed to be a major factor in causing the 1847 North American typhus epidemic.

[19] In order to prevent the spread of diseases on board, a number of pieces of legislation were passed adding new regulations to the condition of travel in a piecemeal fashion, starting 1847.

Some of the main Acts and amendments are listed below:[6] In 1853, Hamilton Fish, a Republican senator from New York, called for a select committee to "consider the causes and the extent of the sickness and mortality prevailing on board of emigrant ships" and to determine what further legislation might be necessary.

With support from President Franklin Pierce, the 33rd United States Congress passed the Carriage of Passengers Act on March 3, 1855.

In order to help the jury evaluate the case, the judge, Matthew Hall McAllister (who had been appointed to the post on March 2, 1855 by President Franklin Pierce), issued guidance on the law.

[21] On August 2, 1882, a further Carriage of Passengers Act was passed, updating the regulations in light of recent advanced in shipbuilding that made better conditions of travel more economically feasible.