Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/259

 CH. III.]

rules for deciding all cases of capture on land and water, and for the division and appropriation of prizes taken by the land or naval threes, in the service of the United States; of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace; of appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas; and of establishing courts for receiving and finally determining appeals in all cases of captures.

§ 233. Congress was also invested with power to decide in the last resort, on appeal, all disputes and differences between two or more states concerning boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatsoever; and the mode of exercising that authority was specially prescribed. And all controversies concerning the private right of soil, claimed under different grants of two or more states before the settlement of their jurisdiction, were to be finally determined in the same manner, upon the petition of either of the grantees. But no state was to be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States.

§ 234. Congress was also invested with the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or that of the United States; of fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the United States; of regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the states, provided, that the legislative right of any state within its own limits should be not infringed or violated; of establishing and regulating post-offices from one state to another, and exacting postage to defray the expenses; of appointing all