A Century of Federal Judicature. River Bridge v. Warren Bridge. The case of Mayor of New York v. Miln, together with the subsequent cases known as the Li cense and the Passenger Cases, involved a review of doctrine of Gibbons v. Ogden and Brown v. Maryland, with respect to regula tion of commerce. In the first-named case it was decided that a New York statute requir ing masters of vessels to make reports of passengers on arriving was a police regula tion which did not interfere with the powers of Congress with respect to the regulation of foreign commerce. In the License Cases it was held that a State might regulate or prohibit the retail sale of wines or spirits that Congress had authorized to be imported, each justice having, however, his own method of reaching that conclusion. In the Passenger Cases the judgment of the court was that a State might impose a head tax on immigrants, the power of Congress to regu late commerce not being exclusive. Briscoe r. Bank of Kentucky involved the correct ness of the decision with respect to the emis sion of bills of credit in Craig v. Missouri, and Marshall's reasoning in that case was distinctly repudiated. Charles River Bridge ". Warren Bridge called in question the con struction of the contract clause of the Consti tution as applied in Dartmouth College v. Woodward and Fletcher v. Peck, and it was specifically held that the States were free to authorize bridges, railroads and other simi lar improvements without regard to implied contracts in former grants and monopolies. In Mayor of New York r. Miln, Brisc-oe v. Bank of Kentucky and Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, Justice Story dissented with the energy of despair. But the dire prophesies of Kent and Webster which these judgments evoked have not been realized. The commerce clause has continued to be a subject upon which a wide difference of opinion exists, and not until our own day has Taney's judgment in the New Hampshire License Case been distinctly
overruled. The doctrine of Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky has ever since been maintained; and the decision in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge was the beginning of a move ment to circumvent Marshall's doctrine which has continued to this day. By the logical application of Marshall's doctrine the State, as Judge Hare says, "was stripped of prerogatives that are commonly regarded as inseparable from sovereignty, and might have stood, like Lear, destitute before her offspring, had not the police power been dexterously declared paramount and used as a means of rescinding improvident grants. The court's refusal in Luther v. Borden, to interfere with the political issues arising out of "Dorr's Rebellion" is amply justified by Chief Justice Taney's lucid exposition. "The high power has been conferred upon this court of passing judgments upon the acts of the State sovereignties and of the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government, and of determining whether they are beyond the limits of power marked out for them respectively by the Constitution of the United States. This tribunal, therefore, should be the last to over step the boundaries which limit its own juris diction; and while it should always be ready to meet any question confided to it by the Constitution, it is equally its duty not to pass beyond its appropriate sphere of action, and to take care not to involve itself in discus sions which properly belong to other for ums." It would have been well if Taney had always been guided by this sentiment. For the rest, Federal authority was sus tained and conserved in such cases as Prigg v. Pennsylvania (in which the chief justice for the first time pronounced a State law un'Constitutional), Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Company, Rhode Island v. Massa chusetts, Ableman v. Booth and the Prize Cases; while Swift r. Tyson, Waring v. Clark and the Genesee Chief are landmarks in the development of Federal jurisdiction. In his
