Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/181

 166 ���FEDERAL REPORTER. ���admitted by the atiswer. The refusai to pay is rested on an allega- tion that the libellant had no authority to perform the service, — that he was liable to indictment, under the laws of Pennsylvanie-, for per- forming it, and that the service was accepted in ignorance of such want of authority. The libellant was duly licensed under a statute of the state of Delaware, approved April 5, 1881. Does this license authorize him to do what he undertook ? Ttis is the only question presented. Jurisdiction over the subject of pilotage, is conferred upon the federal government by the third clause of article 8 of the constitution, — which provides for the regulation of commerce : Gooley V. The Port Wardens, 12 How. 299. Whether the states might exer- cise jurisdiction until such time as congress should interfere, is a vexed question, — about which the judges disagreed in the case cited. To sustain such jurisdiction it must be held that the constitutional grant of authority to the federal government did not, of itself, oust the authority of the states. "While such a view might seem to be illogical, it is not inconsistent with what has frequently been asserted by the supreme court in similar cases. As is said in Henderson v. TheMayor.m'U. S. 259:, �" It is stated in the decisions of this court that there is a kind of neutral ground, especially in that covered by the regulations of commerce, which may be occupied by the states, and its legislation be valid, ao long as it interferes with no act of congress or treaty of the United States. Such a proposition ia supported by the opinions of several of the judges in The Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283; Cooley v. The Port Wardens, Id.; and by the cases of Crandali v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, and Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713. But the doc- trine has always been controverted in the court, and has seldom, if ever, been stated without dissent." �As, however, congress did interfere, by the statutes of 1789* and 1837, t the jurisdiction of the states is now confined within the limita thus prescribed. The first of these statutes adopted the existing laws of the states, regulating and governing the subject of pilotage, and provided for the adoption of such others as they might thereaf- ter make, — thus conferring upon the acts of the state legislatures the eSect of federal statutes. Its language is as follows : �" AU pilots in the bays, inlets, rivers, harbors and ports of the United States shall continue to be regulated in conformity with the existing laws of the states respect) vely, wherein such pilots may be, or with such laws as the states may respectively hereafter enact for the purpose, until f urther legisla- tive provision shall be made by congress." �It might readily have been foreseen that the states, thus left to ��� �
 * 1 St. 54. fS St. 153.