have exclusive jurisdiction over all such crimes and offences; and any assumption of jurisdiction by congress or the federal courts ⚫ over such crimes and offences, would be a dangerous and alarming usurpation of power, which should be immediately resisted.

The laws of the several states, and of the United States, are therefore, properly speaking, co-ordinate laws; each having their proper order and sphere of action, in which they are supreme; but neither have any supremacy or power over the other, except the priority of the federal laws in cases of concurrent jurisdiction. Subordination and subjection to, are words which express the opposite meaning to the words sovereignty and supremacy; but the state governments are in no proper sense subordinate or subject to the federal government, and the laws of the states are in no proper sense subordinate to the laws of congress. They are co-ordinate in the same sense as congress and the president are co-ordinate powers of the national government. Each is the complement of the other. Each is incomplete without the other. The one is supreme in national, international, and inter-state affairs; and the others are supreme in municipal and local affairs. The United States have no national municipal laws, either common or statute, and no power to adopt them. The federal courts, in civil cases, administer justice and adjudicate upon individual rights, according to the municipal laws, both common and statute, of the states in which they sit, or the lex loci contractus.

SEC. 7. NATIONAL POWERS, DISTINGUISHED FROM STATE POWERS.

Every independent nation has sovereign and supreme legislative, executive, and judicial power within its own limits; and power beyond its limits, to regulate by law the navigation of the ships and vessels of its own citizens-to regulate by laws and treaties, commerce and intercourse with foreign nations, together with exports and imports—to declare and wage war—to raise and support armies-to build and maintain navies-to make treaties, contract alliances, conclude peace, to acquire foreign lands, territories, colonies, countries and provinces, and to make laws and appoint officers for the government thereof.

Under our system of government, none of the foregoing powers of national sovereignty are possessed by the states severally. The

states retain their sovereignty over interior, local, and municipal matters and questions; but have granted to the federal government full and supreme power on all national, international, and inter-state matters-including all the attributes of national sovereignty and excluding each state from the rightful exercise of any political power or jurisdiction beyond its own geographical limits. This is evident from the prohibitions of the tenth section of the first article of the constitution, (ante. p. 49), taken in connection with the eighth section of the same article. The grants of power to the federal government to declare and wage war and to make treaties, authorize the government to do so in accordance with the usages of nations, and for such purposes and objects as war has been usually carried on, and treaties made by civilized nations; and hence those grants imply power to acquire the lands, islands, territories, countries, colonies, and provinces of other nations, by conquest or treaty-and when so acquired, to govern them as territories or dependencies of the United States, as long as congress shall see fit to do so. Their power to do so, implied in those grants of power to congress, and in the sovereignty over all national and international matters, and over all matters beyond the limits of the several states, granted by the constitution to the federal government, gives that government as full and plenary power to acquire and govern territories and colonies, as is possessed by the British government, or by any government of Europe. On the contrary, the prohibitions of the tenth section of the first article of the constitution prohibit each of the states from the exercise of any such powers

The constitution contains no limitation to the power of the federal government to acquire and govern foreign territories and countries, nor of the purposes for which they may be acquired. I therefore see no reason why the government may not acquire distant islands and countries to be held as dependences or territories, forever, or until they may be ceded away, or allowed to establish independent national governments of their own. On the contrary, only new states can be admitted into the Union as states; clearly meaning and implying that none of the old states and countries of the old world could be so admitted, under the present constitution of the United States.

SEC. 8. INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR POWERS.

All the exterior powers of government in our country belong to congress, and to the national government, and a portion of the interior powers also. What I mean by exterior powers, are those to be exercised beyond the limits of the several states; those to be exercised within the geographical limits of a state, are interior powers.

The power to regulate foreign commerce and navigation-to regulate commerce and navigation between states, and to establish post offices and post roads, and to carry the mails, are all mixed powers, to be exercised partly within the limits of a state, and partly beyond its limits; the exercise of the power, either commencing within the limits of a particular state, and terminating beyond its limits-or commencing beyond them, and terminating within them.

The power to levy and collect direct taxes, to naturalize foreigners, to regulate and provide for bankruptcies, to build lighthouses, and to improve rivers and harbors, to promote navigation, and the war powers, to raise and equip armies, to build forts, armories, arsenals, military roads, navy-yards, and vessels of war, are all mixed powers, to be exercised within the geographical limits of the several states, but for national purposes. All these powers are carved out of the interior powers of the several states, and so far constitute limitations to state powers. The federal powers in those particulars are supreme and superior, and the concurrent powers of the states on some of those subjects are inferior, and in some respects subordinate to them.

It is an old maxim of law, that the laws of states and countries have no extra territorial force. This maxim applies with full force and without qualification, to the laws of the several states of this Union; but it is subject to many qualifications when applied to the laws of the United States, and to the laws of independent nations; some of which are stated in the last section (on national powers.)

Congress has exclusive power to regulate navigation upon the ocean, beyond the limits of the states; also to regulate navigation between states, upon lakes, rivers, and bays, lying within the limits of two or more states; but no power to regulate navigation

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upon a river or lake lying entirely within the limits of a state. Hence congress has no rightful power to regulate navigation upon the Oneida, Cayuga, or Seneca lake; nor on the Oswego or Mohawk rivers, in the state of New York. Navigation upon those lakes and rivers is the agent and instrument of interior, state, or local commerce only, and not of inter-state commerce; and hence it is the proper and exclusive subject of municipal, or state laws, and not of national nor inter-state laws.

Vessels owned by citizens of New York are subject to state taxation, and are subject to the laws of the state while within the limits of the state; but they become subject to the navigation laws of the United States, the moment they leave the wharf for a voyage to another state, or to a foreign country. Vessels engaged exclusively in navigation and commerce between the cities of New York and Albany, in the same state, which do not pass out of the state in their voyages, I think are properly subject to the laws of the state only, and to the exclusive jurisdiction of its courts. The true doctrine I think is stated by Judge Woodworth, in the case of the North River Steam Boat Company vs. John R. Livingston, reported in 3d Cowen's Reports, 731, on appeal from the decision of Chancellor Sanford, reported in Hopkins' Ch. Rep., 149 and 150. The majority of the court of errors, I think erred in that case, in the application to it of the principles decided by Ch. Justice Marshall, in the great case of Gibbons against Ogden. Instead of carrying out the principles of that decision, it appears to me that the court misapprehended, distorted, and in some measure perverted them, to the great injury of the local sovereignty of

the state.

Judge Savage, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court of errors, lost sight of the distinction between the coasting trade on the ocean, between two ports of the same state, and trade on a river, like the Hudson, between two ports of the same state. In the latter case, the vessel does not pass out of the waters, territory, and jurisdiction of the state; while in the former, the vessel passes beyond the limits and jurisdiction of the state, upon the ocean, the great highway of nations, where the United State laws and government have exclusive jurisdiction over American vessels.

Rivers and the American lakes are not like the ocean, the highway of nations. By act of congress, bounding the state of Michigan, the state comprises a portion of lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Superior and Michigan-extending to the Canada line on the four first named lakes. By acts of congress, lake Michigan forms a portion of the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana; and the United States portion of lake Erie forms a part of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. The ports, harbors, rivers, small bays nearly enclosed by land, and the sea coast to the distance of cannon-shot, or one marine league from the land, and the fisheries therein, properly belong to, and form a part of the several states in which they are situated; but the Atlantic states have no just claim to, nor jurisdiction over, the ocean, beyond reach of cannon-shot from the land. These distinctions Judge Savage lost sight of. The true doctrine is laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Allen vs. Newberry, and that of Maguire vs. Card, reported in 21st Howard's Rep., 244 to 251. The court there held that the United States courts have no jurisdiction of a maratime contract of affraightment upon lake Michigan, from one port to another in the same state.

Hence we see that the laws of the several states have no extra `territorial, or exterior power, and are limited by the constitution, government, and laws of the United States in their interior power. Contracts made in one state by a citizen thereof, to be executed in another state, must be regulated by the laws of the latter state, in the absence of any law of congress for the regulation thereof. Companies incorporated by a state for banking, insurance, or other purposes, have no power to make contracts beyond the limits of such state, except by virtue of the laws or courtesy of the state or country in which the same may be made. On the contrary, congress has power to regulate by law, bills of exchange, promissory notes, and other commercial contracts, made in one state, to be paid or executed in another, or made in a foreign country, to be executed in the United States; and may prescribe the time and mode of presenting and protesting such bills and notes, and the time and mode of giving notice to the endorsers, in order to charge them with the payment thereof;