Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/183

 168 FEDERAL REPORTBB. �bition, lias exclusive jurisdiction of pilotage respecting the port of Philadelphia and its commerce, is unimportaiit. It is not improper, however, to say (as before intimated) that I could not adopt this position, aven in the absence of the statute last referred to. The rela- tionsof the states as membersof the general government, — the fact that they are not separate independencies, and that the navigable watera within their respective limita are subject to common use, — must be constantly kept in view. The commerce on the Delaware bay and river, no matter where from or where bound, does not belong to Penn- sylvania. That she and her citizens derive a larger share of benefit from it than her neighbors, is her good fortune, but it conf ers no right on her to say who shall enter a port within her limits, or what pilot shall be employed. The port itself, constituted of the public waters of the nation, — is not hers ; and it is but by the grace of the general government that she is allowed any independent voice respecting it. In the absence of the statute of 1837, that of 1789, construed in the iight of these facts, must have been held to confer on Pennsylvania, I believe, such authority only as is here conceded to her. Before the adoption of the federal constitution she had no jurisdiction whatever beyond her territorial limits. Since that event she has none (even within) except such as congress has conceded to her. She must be content, therefore, with a voice on the subject in common with her neighbors, who with her border on the waters which constitute her and their outlet to the sea. �It follows from what has been said that the libellant was a duly licensed pilot, authorized to do what he undertook; and that any law of Pennsylvania designed to interfere with him in this respect, is inoperative and void. It also follows that the provision of the Dela- ware statute, which contemplates an exclusive jurisdiction over the subject on waters within her limits, — by requiring "that any person exercising the profession of a pilot in the bay and river Delaware shall * * * apply in person to the board of pilot commissioners (of the state of Delaware) for a license to entitle him to follow that occupation," — is equally inoperative and void. �A decree must be entered in favor of the libellant for the amount claimed. �Note. The act of assembly of Pennsylvania of March 29, 1803, (4 Sm. Laws, 73,) provided inter alia that — �'• Every person exercising the profession of a pilot in the bay or river Dela- ware shall * * * apply in person to the board of wardeus for the port of ��� �