The River Penobscot is entirely within the State of Maine, from
its source to its mouth. For the last eight miles of its course, it
is not navigable, but crossed by four dams erected for
manufacturing purposes. Higher up the stream there was an imperfect
navigation.
A law of the state granting the exclusive navigation of the
upper river to a company who were to improve it is not in conflict
with the 8th section of the 1st Article of the Constitution of the
United States, and a license to carry on the coasting trade did not
entitle a vessel to navigate the upper waters of the river.
The facts in the case are stated in the opinion of the
Court.
Page 55 U. S. 571
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions raised upon this record, however subdivided or
varied they may have been in form or number, are essentially and
properly restricted to the power and the duty of this Court to
inquire into the constitutional obligation of the law of the State
of Maine, upon which the decision of the supreme court of that
state was founded, for if that law and the privileges conferred
thereby be coincident with the eighth section of Article 1st of the
Constitution, they can be assailable here upon no just
exception.
It is insisted, however, that the statute of the State of Maine
is in derogation of the power vested in Congress by the article and
section above mentioned, "to regulate commerce with foreign
nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."
We will examine the character of this objection with reference to
the facts disclosed by the record, and with reference also to the
provisions of the statute in question, as they have been designed
to operate on those facts, and as these last are all agreed by the
parties, there can be no need of a comparison of the testimony to
ascertain their verity.
The River Penobscot is situated entirely within the State of
Maine; having its rise far in the interior of the state, it is not
subject to the tides above the City of Bangor, near its mouth.
Between the City of Bangor and Old Town, a distance of eight miles,
the Penobscot passes over a fall, is crossed by four dams erected
for manufacturing purposes, and for the above space is not at this
time and never has been navigable, but there is a railroad from
Bangor to the steamboat landing at Old Town. On 30 July, 1846, the
Legislature of Maine, by
Page 55 U. S. 572
law enacted, that William Moor and Daniel Moor, Jr., their
associates and assigns, were authorized to improve the navigation
of the Penobscot River above Old Town, and for that purpose were
authorized to deepen the channel of the river, to cut down and
remove any gravel or ledge, bars, rocks, or other obstructions in
the bed thereof; to erect in the bed, on the shore or bank of said
river, suitable dams and locks, with booms, piers abutments,
breakwaters, and other erections to protect the same; to build upon
the shore or bank of said river, any canal or canals to connect the
navigable parts of said river, or in case it shall be deemed the
preferable mode of improvement, any railroads for the like
purpose.
After providing the modes of acquiring lands or gravel on the
shores or in the bed of the river and for compensating the owners
of property used in the prosecution of the contemplated
improvement, the act proceeds to limit the time for the completion
of the undertaking, within particular termini therein named, to the
period of seven years from its date, and further requires that
within the period thus limited, the grantees shall build and run a
steamboat between those termini, and shall, within the same time
make a canal and lock around the falls of the river or a railroad
to connect the route above with that below the falls.
Then follows section fourth of the statute, containing the
provision objected to. It is in these words:
"If said William Moor and Daniel Moor, Jr., their associates and
assigns, shall perform the conditions of this grant as contained in
the preceding section, the sole right of navigating said river by
boats propelled by steam from said Old Town so far up as they shall
render the same navigable is hereby granted to them for the term of
twenty years from and after the completion of the improvement as
provided in the third section of this act."
The defendant in error, who is assignee of the original grantees
from the legislature, having made certain improvements in the river
by the removal of rocks and by deepening the channel in other
places so as to enable boats to run therein with two and a half
feet less of water than was requisite for navigation previously to
these improvements, and all within the limit prescribed to him by
law, built, and on 27 May, 1847, placed upon the said river the
steamboat
Governor Neptune and ran her from Old Town over
the Piscataquis Falls to a place called Nickaton. In the spring of
the year 1847, the defendant in error placed on the river the
steamboat
Mattanawcook and ran her to Lincoln till
obstructions were removed by him at a place called the Mohawk Rips,
above the Piscataquis Falls, and has also built and is now running
upon the river another steamboat
Page 55 U. S. 573
called the
Sam Houston, in addition to the
Governor
Neptune and the
Mattanawcook.
The plaintiff in error, Samuel Veazie, built the steamboat
Governor Dana and, in conjunction with the other
plaintiffs, Levi and Warren R. Young, ran her upon the Penobscot
River between Old Town and the Piscataquis Falls from 10 May, 1849,
until they were arrested by an injunction granted at the suit of
the defendant in error. The steamboat
Governor Dana was
enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade at the custom house at
Bangor. The Penobscot tribe of Indians own all the islands in the
Penobscot River above Old Town Falls, some of which they occupy,
and this tribe always have been, and now are, under the
jurisdiction and guardianship of the State of Maine.
Upon this state of facts agreed, the Supreme Judicial Court of
Maine, after argument and advisement, at its June term, 1850,
decreed that the plaintiffs in error be perpetually enjoined to
desist and refrain from running and employing the steamboat
Governor Dana, propelled by steam, for transporting
passengers or merchandise on said river or any part thereof above
Old Town, and also from building, using, and employing, any other
boat propelled by steam on that part of the said river for that
purpose without the consent of the said Wyman B. S. Moor obtained
according to law until the said Moor's exclusive right shall
expire. The court further decreed to the defendant in error the sum
of one thousand and fifty-two dollars and forty-five cents for
damages and expenses incurred by him by reason of the interference
with his rights on the part of the plaintiffs in error.
Upon a comparison of this decree and of the statute upon which
it is founded with the provision of the Constitution already
referred to, we are unable to perceive by what rule of
interpretation either the statute or the decree can be brought
within either of the categories comprised in that provision.
These categories are, 1st, commerce with foreign nations; 2d,
commerce amongst the several states; 3d, commerce with the Indian
tribes. Taking the term "commerce" in its broadest acceptation,
supposing it to embrace not merely traffic, but the means and
vehicles by which it is prosecuted, can it properly be made to
include objects and purposes such as those contemplated by the law
under review? "Commerce with foreign nations" must signify commerce
which in some sense is necessarily connected with these nations,
transactions which either immediately or at some stage of their
progress must be extraterritorial. The phrase can never be applied
to transactions wholly internal, between citizens of the same
community, or to a polity and laws whose ends and purposes and
operations are
Page 55 U. S. 574
restricted to the territory and soil and jurisdiction of such
community. Nor can it be properly concluded, that, because the
products of domestic enterprise in agriculture or manufactures, or
in the arts, may ultimately become the subjects of foreign
commerce, that the control of the means or the encouragements by
which enterprise is fostered and protected, is legitimately within
the import of the phrase foreign commerce, or fairly implied in any
investiture of the power to regulate such commerce. A pretension as
far reaching as this, would extend to contracts between citizen and
citizen of the same state, would control the pursuits of the
planter, the grazier, the manufacturer, the mechanic, the immense
operations of the collieries and mines and furnaces of the country;
for there is not one of these avocations, the results of which may
not become the subjects of foreign commerce, and be borne either by
turnpikes, canals, or railroads, from point to point within the
several states, towards an ultimate destination, like the one above
mentioned. Such a pretension would effectually prevent or paralyze
every effort at internal improvement by the several states, for it
cannot be supposed that the states would exhaust their capital and
their credit in the construction of turnpikes, canals, and
railroads, the remuneration derivable from which, and all control
over which, might be immediately wrested from them, because such
public works would be facilities for a commerce which, whilst
availing itself of those facilities, was unquestionably internal,
although intermediately or ultimately it might become foreign.
The rule here given with respect to the regulation of foreign
commerce equally excludes from the regulation of commerce between
the states and the Indian tribes the control over turnpikes,
canals, or railroads, or the clearing and deepening of watercourses
exclusively within the states, or the management of the
transportation upon and by means of such improvements. In truth,
the power vested in Congress by Article 1st, section 8th of the
Constitution, was not designed to operate upon matters like those
embraced in the statute of the State of Maine, and which are
essentially local in their nature and extent. The design and object
of that power, as evinced in the history of the Constitution, was
to establish a perfect equality amongst the several states as to
commercial rights and to prevent unjust and invidious distinctions
which local jealousies or local and partial interests might be
disposed to introduce and maintain. These were the views pressed
upon the public attention by the advocates for the adoption of the
Constitution, and in accordance therewith have been the expositions
of this instrument propounded by this Court in decisions quoted by
counsel on either side of this cause, though differently applied by
them.
Page 55 U. S. 575
Vide The Federalist, Nos. 7 and 11, and the cases of
Gibbons v.
Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1;
New York
v. Milne, 11 Pet. 102;
Brown v.
State of Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; and
The License
Cases, 5 How. 504.
The fact of procuring from the collector of the port of Bangor a
license to prosecute the coasting trade for the boat placed upon
the Penobscot by the plaintiff in error, the
Governor Dana
does not affect, in the slightest degree, the rights or condition
of the parties. These remain precisely as they would have stood had
no such license been obtained. A license to prosecute the coasting
trade is a warrant to traverse the waters washing or bounding the
coasts of the United States. Such a license conveys no privilege to
use, free of tolls or of any condition whatsoever, the canals
constructed by a state or the watercourses partaking of the
character of canals exclusively within the interior of a state and
made practicable for navigation by the funds of the state or by
privileges she may have conferred for the accomplishment of the
same end. The attempt to use a coasting license for a purpose like
this is in the first place a departure from the obvious meaning of
the document itself, and an abuse wholly beyond the object and the
power of the government in granting it.
Upon the whole, we are of the opinion that the decision of the
Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine is in accordance with
the Constitution of the United States, and ought to be and is
hereby
Affirmed.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine, and was
argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered
and adjudged by this Court that the judgment of the said Supreme
Judicial Court in this cause be and the same is hereby affirmed
with costs.