Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/182

 THE CLYMENE. 167 �separate, independent action, would soon come in conflict. Two or more, bounding on the same water, each intent upon its individual interests, would be impelled to inconsistent hostile legislation. Such a resuit did follow, and to provide for it, congress in March, 1837. enacted — �" ihat it shall and may be lawful for the master or commander of any vessel coming into, or going eut of, any port situate upon waters which are the boundary between two states, to eiiiploy any pilot duly autliorized or licensed by the laws of either of the states bounded by said waters, to pilot said vessel to or from said port, any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstand- ing." �The first of these statutes conferred on'the state of Delaware (if she had it not before) authority over the subject of pilotage, on the navigable waters within her limits. Such at least was its effect. I do not mean to say that the authority thus conferred (or recognized) was exclusive, and might lawfully be exercised in hostility to her neighbors, — even before the enactment of the subsequent statute. I believe, indeed, that it was not exclusive ; and that it could only be exercised in such manner as was consistent with the relations which the eeveral states bear to each other as members of the federal government. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 ; The Daniel Bail, 10 Wall. 663; The Montello, 11 Wall 411. The subsequent statute did not interfere with the proper exercise of this authority, but put the question just suggested at rest, by providing against such abusive, hostile exercise of it. She may license pilots, and provide regula- tions for their government and employment, but she may not exclude others, duly licensed elsewhere, from employment on the public waters of the nation, because these waters happen to be within her territorial limits. Those from Pennsylvania, as well as her own, may lawfully exercise their callingthere, andvessels requiring such service may elect whom they will employ. That this statute was intended to apply to circumstances such as exist in this case I cannot doubt. They are clearly within its spirit, and with a just interpretation of its language, as clearly within its terms. It was so understood and applied by the supreme court of Pennsylvania in Flanigen v. Ins. Co. 1 Barr, 306; and so construed by congress in the subsequent statute of February, 1847, relating to the same subject. �In this view of the case the respondent's contention that "pilotage is the subject of local regulation of the state in which the port lies," and therefore that Pennsylvania, in the absence of statutory prohi- ��� �