Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/206

192 FEDSKAL BSFOBTEK. �legislative rather than of a judicial character, and is therefore one which congress could not delegate to this tribunal. �At an earlier stage in ihe controversy these objections were con- sidered by the court, and a conclusion reached, which is now believed to have been radically ■vsrong, upon the main question involved. The ruling then made was not intended to foreclose further discussion, and counsel have since been f ully heard, and the case carefully recon- sidered. �While the opinion originally expressed bas been confirmed in all that relates to the constitutionai right of congress to confer jurisdic- tion upon the court to decide what compensation the bridge company may charge the railroad companies for the use of the bridge, the reoonsideration has led to the conviction that the act was not intended to, and does not, confer such jurisdiction. Assuming that congress intended to confer upon this court authority to prescribe the compen- sation which the bridge company might charge for the use of their property, no doubt is entertained of the constitutionality of the act. It was an inherent condition to the complete enjoyment of the grant conferred by the state of New York and the dominion of Canada upon the corporation, that congress should sanction the undertaking proposed, as congress was a necessary party to any compact which involved the cession Of the sovereignty of the United States over that part of the Niagara river lying.within the boundaries of the state of New York. The river is a public, navigable water, and under the power to regulate commerce congress undoubtedly had the right to prohibit obstructions to its navigation ; to declare any obstruction a public nuisance ; to declare what degree or description of obstruction should be a public nuisance; to direct the mode of proceeding in the courts of the United States to remove it ; and to punish any one who might erect or maintain it. Taney v. Wheeling Bridge Co. 13 How. 579. The franchises gradted by the state of New York and the dominion of Canada were aooepted by the bridge company, subject to the right of congress to intei-vene whenever its power to regulate commerce should be invokel, and to determine what should be the character and extent of its intervention. Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 725; The Clinton Bridge, 10 Wall. 454; County qf Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691. �It cannot, therefore, be maintained that the act of congress is a dis- turbanee of any vested rights of the bridge company under the char- ters which it had obtained, even had it not been passed before the company commenced to build the bridge. But it was passed before ��� �