From Gibbons v.
Publié le 26/05/2013
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Can a trading expedition between two adjoining States, commence and terminate outside of each? And if the trading intercourse be between two States remote fromeach other, must it not commence in one, terminate in the other, and probably pass through a third?
We are now arrived at the inquiry—What is this power?
It is the power to regulate, that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.
This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, maybe exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.
These are expressed in plain terms, and do not affectthe questions which arise in this case, or which have been discussed at the bar.
If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited tospecified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, is vested in Congress as absolutely as itwould be in a single government, having in its Constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States.
But it has been urged with great earnestness that, although the power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States becoextensive with the subject itself, and have no other limits than are prescribed in the Constitution, yet the States may severally exercise the same power, within theirrespective jurisdictions.
In support of this argument, it is said that they possessed it as an inseparable attribute of sovereignty, before the formation of theConstitution, and still retain it except so far as they have surrendered it by that instrument; that this principle results from the nature of the government, and is securedby the tenth amendment; that an affirmative grant of power is not exclusive unless in its own nature it be such that the continued exercise of it by the formerpossessor is inconsistent with the grant, and that this is not of that description.
The appellant, conceding these postulates except the last, contends that full power to regulate a particular subject implies the whole power, and leaves no residuum;that a grant of the whole is incompatible with the existence of a right in another to any part of it.
Both parties have appealed to the Constitution, to legislative acts, and judicial decisions, and have drawn arguments from all these sources to support and illustratethe propositions they respectively maintain.
In our complex system, presenting the rare and difficult scheme of one General Government whose action extends over the whole but which possesses only certainenumerated powers, and of numerous State governments which retain and exercise all powers not delegated to the Union, contests respecting power must arise.
Wereit even otherwise, the measures taken by the respective governments to execute their acknowledged powers would often be of the same description, and mightsometimes interfere.
This, however, does not prove that the one is exercising, or has a right to exercise, the powers of the other.
It has been contended by the counsel for the appellant that, as the word 'to regulate' implies in its nature full power over the thing to be regulated, it excludesnecessarily the action of all others that would perform the same operation on the same thing.
That regulation is designed for the entire result, applying to those partswhich remain as they were, as well as to those which are altered.
It produces a uniform whole which is as much disturbed and deranged by changing what theregulating power designs to leave untouched as that on which it has operated.
There is great force in this argument, and the Court is not satisfied that it has been refuted.
Since, however, in exercising the power of regulating their own purely internal affairs, whether of trading or police, the States may sometimes enact laws the validityof which depends on their interfering with, and being contrary to, an act of Congress passed in pursuance of the Constitution, the Court will enter upon the inquirywhether the laws of New York, as expounded by the highest tribunal of that State, have, in their application to this case, come into collision with an act of Congressand deprived a citizen of a right to which that act entitles him.
Should this collision exist, it will be immaterial whether those laws were passed in virtue of aconcurrent power 'to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States' or in virtue of a power to regulate their domestic trade and police.
In onecase and the other, the acts of New York must yield to the law of Congress, and the decision sustaining the privilege they confer against a right given by a law of theUnion must be erroneous.
This opinion has been frequently expressed in this Court, and is founded as well on the nature of the government as on the words of the Constitution.
In argument,however, it has been contended that, if a law passed by a State, in the exercise of its acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by Congress inpursuance of the Constitution, they affect the subject and each other like equal opposing powers.
But the framers of our Constitution foresaw this state of things, and provided for it by declaring the supremacy not only of itself, but of the laws made in pursuanceof it.
The nullity of any act inconsistent with the Constitution is produced by the declaration that the Constitution is the supreme law.
The appropriate application ofthat part of the clause which confers the same supremacy on laws and treaties is to such acts of the State Legislatures as do not transcend their powers, but, thoughenacted in the execution of acknowledged State powers, interfere with, or are contrary to, the laws of Congress made in pursuance of the Constitution or some treatymade under the authority of the United States.
In every such case, the act of Congress or the treaty is supreme, and the law of the State, though enacted in the exerciseof powers not controverted, must yield to it.
In pursuing this inquiry at the bar, it has been said that the Constitution does not confer the right of intercourse between State and State.
That right derives its sourcefrom those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.
This is true.
The Constitution found it an existing right, and gave toCongress the power to regulate it.
In the exercise of this power, Congress has passed 'an act for enrolling or licensing ships or vessels to be employed in the coastingtrade and fisheries, and for regulating the same.' The counsel for the respondent contend that this act does not give the right to sail from port to port, but confinesitself to regulating a preexisting right so far only as to confer certain privileges on enrolled and licensed vessels in its exercise.
It will at once occur that, when a Legislature attaches certain privileges and exemptions to the exercise of a right over which its control is absolute, the law mustimply a power to exercise the right.
The privileges are gone if the right itself be annihilated.
It would be contrary to all reason, and to the course of human affairs, tosay that a State is unable to strip a vessel of the particular privileges attendant on the exercise of a right, and yet may annul the right itself; that the State of New Yorkcannot prevent an enrolled and licensed vessel, proceeding from Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, to New York, from enjoying, in her course, and on her entrance intoport, all the privileges conferred by the act of Congress, but can shut her up in her own port, and prohibit altogether her entering the waters and ports of another State.To the Court, it seems very clear that the whole act on the subject of the coasting trade, according to those principles which govern the construction of statutes,implies unequivocally an authority to licensed vessels to carry on the coasting trade.
But all inquiry into this subject seems to the Court to be put completely at rest by the act already mentioned, entitled, 'An act for the enrolling and licensing ofsteamboats.'
This act authorizes a steamboat employed, or intended to be employed, only in a river or bay of the United States, owned wholly or in part by an alien, resident withinthe United States, to be enrolled and licensed as if the same belonged to a citizen of the United States.
This act demonstrates the opinion of Congress that steamboats may be enrolled and licensed, in common with vessels using sails.
They are, of course, entitled to thesame privileges, and can no more be restrained from navigating waters and entering ports which are free to such vessels than if they were wafted on their voyage bythe winds, instead of being propelled by the agency of fire.
The one element may be as legitimately used as the other for every commercial purpose authorized by the.
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