Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/526

 518 § 1070. In the next place, to what extent, and for what objects and purposes the power to regulate commerce may be constitutionally applied.

§ 1071. And first, among the states. It is not doubted, that it extends to the regulation of navigation, and to the coasting trade and fisheries, within, as well as without any state, wherever it is connected with the commerce or intercourse with any other state, or with foreign nations. It extends to the regulation and government of seamen on board of American ships; and to conferring privileges upon ships built and owned in the United States in domestic, as well as foreign trade. It extends to quarantine laws, and pilotage laws, and wrecks of the sea. It extends, as well to the navigation of vessels engaged in carrying passengers, and whether steam vessels or of any other description, as to the navigation of vessels engaged in traffic and general coasting business. It extends to the laying of embargoes, as well on domestic, as on foreign voyages. It extends to the construction of light-houses, the placing of buoys and beacons, the removal of obstructions to navigation in creeks, rivers, sounds, and bays, and the establishment of securities to navigation against the inroads of the ocean. It extends also to the designation of particular port or ports of entry and delivery for the purposes of foreign commerce. These powers have been actually exerted by the national government