The disposition of the court will be, undoubtedly, to support, if it can, laws so passed and so sanctioned.  I admit, therefore, that it is justly expected of us that we should make out a clear case; and unless we do so, we cannot hope for a reversal.  It should be remembered, however, that the whole of this branch of power, as exercised by this court, is a power of revision.  The question must be decided by the State courts, and decided in a particular manner, before it can be brought here at all.  Such decisions alone give this court jurisdiction; and therefore, while they are to be respected as the judgments of learned judges, they are yet in the condition of all decisions from which the law allows an appeal.

It will not be a waste of time to advert to the existing state of the facts connected with the subject of this litigation.  The use of steamboats on the coasts and in the bays and rivers of the country, has become very general.  The intercourse of its different parts essentially depends upon this mode of conveyance and transportation.  Rivers and bays, in many cases, form the divisions between States; and thence it is obvious, that, if the States should make regulations for the navigation of these waters, and such regulations should be repugnant and hostile, embarrassment would necessarily be caused to the general intercourse of the community.  Such events have actually occurred, and have created the existing state of things.

By the law of New York, no one can navigate the bay of New York, the North River, the Sound, the lakes, or any of the waters of that State, by steam-vessels, without a license from the grantees of New York, under penalty of forfeiture of the vessel.

By the law of the neighboring State of Connecticut, no one can enter her waters with a steam-vessel having such license.

By the law of New Jersey, if any citizen of that State shall be restrained, under the New York law, from using steamboats between the ancient shores of New Jersey and New York, he shall be entitled to an action for damages, in New Jersey, with treble costs against the party who thus restrains or impedes him under the law of New York!  This act of New Jersey is called an act of retortion against the illegal and oppressive legislation of New York; and seems to be defended on those grounds of public law which justify reprisals between independent States.

It will hardly be contended, that all these acts are consistent with the laws and Constitution of the United States.  If there is no power in the general government to control this extreme belligerent legislation of the States, the powers of the government are essentially deficient in a most important and interesting particular.  The present controversy respects the earliest of these State laws, those of New York.  On these, this court is now to pronounce; and if they should be declared to be valid and operative, I hope somebody will point out where the State right stops, and on what grounds the acts of other States are to be held inoperative and void.