Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/452

 440 FEDERAL REFOIiTEB. �luurrer. Among the cases which serve to throw light on this subject are Northwestern Packet Co. v. Atla, 2 Dillon, 479, and 8. C. 21 Wall. 389, The substance of those decisions ia that a state, in the absence of congressional legislation, may authorize the erection of structures on its own shore, and that its citizens affeeted thereby cannot complain of the same as a nuisance, with right of recovery for special damages under such a rule; but those decisions do not go to the estent that an individual acting under the supposed authority of state legislation can obstruet the navigability of the Missis- sippi river, which is a common highway. The limit of state authority is to protect its own shores and liarbbrs, without interfering with the common rights of navigation. Where its Btatute authorizes a structure, its own citizens must accept the legal consequences, though not without recovery of dam- ages; but Missouri cannot pass a law to govern Illinois, its citizens, and their realty situate in Illinois. If, pursuant to a Missouri statute, a dyke was erected destructive of property in Illinois belonging to the citizens of the latter state, such statute cannot be pleaded against them, for the Missouri statute could not operate extraterritorially. �The question intended to be raised by demurrer cannot be BO raised. The court must be informed by answer, on trial, whetherthe dyke interfered with the navigability ot the river, and transcended the power of the state in the premises. It is obvions that if, in the absence of congressional legisla- tion, each state bordering on the Mississippi river may pre- Bcribe what its citizens may do, destructive of the naviga- bility of the river, and to the great damage of owners occupying the opposite shore, then such a state statute would have an extraterritorial effect — a proposition not admissible. �In the light of the views thus presented, the demurrer must be overruled, so that the parties may present to the court the facts on which their respective rights are based. �Since the foregoing opinion was written, Judge McCrary bas passed on a question, not the same as that here presented, but one which throws some light on the subject, — City of St. ��� �