Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 1.djvu/135

  To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States:

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; An act of Congress, laying an embargo for an indefinite period of time, is constitutional and valid. The United States v. The William, 2 Hall’s Am. Law Jour. 255. The power of regulating commerce extends to the regulation of navigation. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; 5 Cond. Rep. 562. The power to regulate commerce extends to every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, and among the several States. It does not stop at the external boundary of a State; but it does not extend to a commerce which is completely internal. Ibid. The power to regulate commerce is general, and has no limitations but such as are prescribed by the Constitution itseli This power, so for as it extends, is exclusively vested in Congress, and no part of it can he exercised by a State. Ibid. The power of regulating commerce extends to navigation carried on by vessels employed in transporting passengers. Ibid. All those powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or which may he properly called internal police, are not surrendered (by the States) or restrained, and consequently in relation to those the authority of a State is complete, unqualified, and exclusive. The City of N. York v. Mila, 11 Peters, 102. The act of the legislature of New York passed February 1824, entitled, “An Act concerning passengers in vessels arriving in the port of New York,” is not a regulation of commerce, but of police; and being so, it was passed in the exercise of a power which belonged to that State. Ibid. The power to regulate commerce, includes the power to regulate navigation, as connected with the commerce with foreign nations and among the States. It does not stop at the mere boundary line of a State, nor is it coniined to acts done on the waters, or in the necessary course of the navigation thereof. It extends to such acts done on the land, which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent the due exercise of the powers to regulate commerce and navigation with foreign nations, and among the States. Any offence which thus interferes with, obstructs, or prevents such commerce and navigation, though done on land, may be punished by Congress, under its general authority to make all laws necessary and proper to execute their delegated constitutional powers. The United States v. Lawrence Coombs, 12 Peters, 72. Persons are not the subjects of commerce, and not being imported goods, they do not fall within the meaning founded upon the Constitution, of a power given to Congress, to regulate commerce, and the prohibition of the States for imposing a duty on imported goods. Ibid.; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; 5 Cond. Rep. 562.

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;