Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/344

 332 FEDERAL REPORTER. �may follow them up as far as navigation is practicable. " And in Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, it was held that a law of the state of New York, giving certain persons the exclusive right to navigate the waters of that state by vessels propelled by steam or fire, as against such license, was void. In this last case the law of the state was in direct conflict with that of congress. The latter said, in effeet, to its licensee, "You are authorized to navigate the waters of New York with vessels propelled by steam," while the former said "You shall not do so." But in this case there is no necessary conflict be- tween the law of the state and the United States. A license to engage in the coasting trade on the Wallamet river is a license to navigate only so far as it may be navigable. But if the state, in the exercise of its police power to build bridges, obstructs, or even destroys, the navigation of the river, the weight of authority, and, I think, of prudential reason, is that the act of congress licensing the plaintiff's steam-boat to navigate it is not thereby infringed. It is thought to be safer for the courts not to assume that congress intended to interfere with and restrain the power of the state over the nayigability of the rivers within its jurisdiction until it says 80 directly or by necessary implication. Therefore, in the cases of Wilson v. Blackbird Creek Ma/rsh Co. 2 Pet. 245 ; The Passaic Bridges, 3 Wall. 782 ; and Gilman v. Philadelphia, Id. 713, it was held that the enroUment and license acts which authorized vessels to navigate the waters of particular states were not sufSeient to warrant the inference that congress thereby intended to interfere with the right of the states to dam or otherwise obstruct the navigation of said waters. �Does the act of February 14, 1859, supra, conflict with the act of the state legislature authorizing the erection of this bridge? This act, unlike the one providing for the enroU- ment and license of vessels, relates directly to the navigabil- ity of the waters within the state. Its only purpose is to preserve them for the free use of ail the citizens of the United States as common highways. It was passed by con- gress in pursuance of its control over them as a means of commerce, {Pollard v. Hogan, 8 How. 229,) to secure their ��� �