Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/651

Rh 113. It does not comprehend that commerce which is completely internal—which is carried on between man and man in a state, or between different parts of the same state, and which does not extend to or affect other states. Ibid. 194.

114. But it does not stop at the jurisdictional lines of the several states; it must be exercised wherever the subject exists, and must be exercised within the territorial jurisdiction of the several states. Ibid. 195, 196.

115. This power to regulate commerce is the power to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. Ibid.

116. Like all other powers vested in Congress, it is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and has no other limitations than such as are prescribed in the Constitution. Ibid.

117. The authority of Congress to lay and collect taxes does not interfere with the power of the states to tax for the support of their own governments; nor is the exercise of that power by the states an exercise of any portion of the power that is granted to the United States. Ibid. 199.

118. But when a state proceeds to regulate commerce with foreign nations, or among the several states, it is exercising the very power that is granted to Congress.

119. The power of laying duties on imports or exports is considered, in the Constitution, as a branch of the taxing power, and not of the power to regulate commerce. Ibid. 201.

120. The inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are not in the exercise of a power to regulate commerce, within the language of the Constitution. Ibid. 203.

121. Although Congress cannot enable a state to legislate, it may adopt the provisions of a state on any subject. Ibid. 207.

122. It seems that the power to regulate implies, in its nature, full power over the thing to be regulated, and excludes necessarily the action of all others that would perform the same operation on the same thing. Ibid. 209.

123. When the legislature attaches certain privileges and exemptions to the exercise of a right over which its control is absolute, the law must imply the power to exercise the right; and therefore the act on the subject of the coasting trade implies an authority to licensed vessels to carry on that trade. Ibid. 212.

124. The license, under that law, is a legislative authority to the licensed vessel to be employed in the coasting trade, and is not intended merely to confer the national character: that character is conferred by the enrolment, not by the license. Ibid. 214.

125. The power to regulate commerce extends as well to vessels employed in carrying passengers as to those employed in transporting property. Ibid. 215.

126. It extends equally to vessels propelled by steam, or fire, as to those navigated by the instrumentality of wind and sails. Ibid. 219.

127. The clause in the act of incorporation of the Bank of the United States which authorizes the bank to sue in the federal courts, is warranted by the 3d article of the Constitution of the United States, which declares "that the judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority." Osborn et Al. v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 733.

128. The executive department may constitutionally execute every law which the legislature may constitutionally make, and the judicial department may receive from the legislature the power of construing every such law. Ibid.

129. The 3d article of the Constitution of the United States enables the judicial department to receive jurisdiction to the full extent of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, when any question respecting them shall assume such a form that the judicial power is capable of acting on it. That power is capable of acting only when the subject is submitted to it by a