Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/913

 UNITED STATES V. BRIDLBMAN. 901 �it is not limited or restrained by the fact that the Inclians are within the limita of a state. The Indians were here be- fore the state was, and the state was forrped and admitted into the Union subject to their right to remain here, and the power of congress over the intercourse between them and the people of the state, until they are removed, or become a part of the latter, through the agenoy or with the consent of the United States. Nor is it material that the state has the gen- erai power to and does punish for larceny committed within its limite. So it has the power to regulate and control the disposition of spirituous liquor. But in neither case does this power exclude or supersede the paramount authority of the national government where the larceny or disposition touches upon, or affects a subject within its ]'urisdiction and power. As, for instance, the general police power of the state over the manufacture, sale, and use of distilled spirits within its limits is subordinate to the act of congress passed in pursuance of its power to regulate commerce, which per- mits the importation of such spirits into the state from for- eign countries; nor can the state interfere with or tax the importer in the exercise of his right to sell and dispose of the same within its limits, in the original package. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; License Cases, 5 How. 573. �The power to regulate commerce being construed to include navigation, (Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 186,) it has been held by the supreme court that congress may, in pursuance of this authority, provide for the punishment of persons who steal goods or efifects belonging to a vessel in distress, or wrecked within the admiralty jurisdiction, although such goods are taken not immediately from the vessel, but above high-water mark on the land, and within the jurisdiction of the state. U. S. v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72. Now, if congress, in pursuance of its power to regulate commerce, can punish for the larceny of goods constituting an element of that com- merce anywhere within the state, why may not it, in pursu- ance of the same power, punish the defendant for the larceny of a blanket, within the state, from a member of an Indian ��� �