If the present state of things, these laws of New York, the laws of Connecticut, and the laws of New Jersey, had been all presented, in the convention of New York, to the eminent person whose name is on this record, and who acted on that occasion so important a part; if he had been told, that, after all he had said in favor of the new government, and of its salutary effects on commercial regulations, the time would yet come when the North River would be shut up by a monopoly from New York, the Sound interdicted by a penal law of Connecticut, reprisals authorized by New Jersey against citizens of New York, and when one could not cross a ferry without transshipment, does any one suppose he would have admitted all this as compatible with the government which he was recommending?

This doctrine of a general concurrent power in the States is insidious and dangerous.  If it be admitted, no one can say where it will stop.  The States may legislate, it is said, wherever Congress has not made a plenary exercise of its power.  But who is to judge whether Congress has made this plenary exercise of power?  Congress has acted on this power; it has done all that it deemed wise; and are the States now to do whatever Congress has left undone?  Congress makes such rules as, in its judgment, the case requires; and those rules, whatever they are, constitute the system.

All useful regulation does not consist in restraint; and that which Congress sees fit to leave free is a part of its regulation, as much as the rest.

The practice under the Constitution sufficiently evinces, that this portion of the commercial power is exclusive in Congress.  When, before this instance, have the States granted monopolies?  When, until now, have they interfered with the navigation of the country?  The pilot laws, the health laws, or quarantine laws, and various regulations of that class, which have been recognized by Congress, are no arguments to prove, even if they are to be called commercial regulations (which they are not), that other regulations, more directly and strictly commercial, are not solely within the power of Congress.  There is a singular fallacy, as I venture to think, in the argument of very learned and most respectable persons on this subject.  That argument alleges, that the States have a concurrent power with Congress of regulating commerce; and the proof of this position is, that the States have, without any question of their right, passed acts respecting turnpike roads, toll-bridges, and ferries.  These are declared to be acts of commercial regulation, affecting not only the interior commerce of the State itself, but also commerce between different States.  Therefore, as all these are commercial regulations, and are yet acknowledged to be rightfully established by the States, it follows, as is supposed, that the States must have a concurrent power to regulate commerce.