Now it must be remembered that this grant is made as an exercise of sovereign political power.  It is not an inspection law, nor a health law, nor passed by any derivative authority; it is professedly an act of sovereign power.  Of course, there is no limit to the power, to be derived from the purpose for which it is exercised.  If exercised for one purpose, it may be also for another.  No one can inquire into the motives which influence sovereign authority.  It is enough that such power manifests its will.  The motive alleged in this case is, to remunerate the grantees for a benefit conferred by them on the public.  But there is no necessary connection between that benefit and this mode of rewarding it; and if the State could grant this monopoly for that purpose, it could also grant it for any other purpose.  It could make the grant for money; and so make the monopoly of navigation over those waters a direct source of revenue.  When this monopoly shall expire, in 1838, the State may continue it, for any pecuniary consideration which the holders may see fit to offer, and the State to receive.

If the State may grant this monopoly, it may also grant another, for other descriptions of vessels; for instance, for all sloops.

If it can grant these exclusive privileges to a few, it may grant them to many; that is, it may grant them to all its own citizens, to the exclusion of everybody else.

But the waters of New York are no more the subject of exclusive grants by that State, than the waters of other States are subjects of such grants by those other States.  Virginia may well exercise, over the entrance of the Chesapeake, all the power that New York can exercise over the bay of New York, and the waters on her shores.  The Chesapeake, therefore, upon the principle of these laws, may be the subject of State monopoly; and so may the bay of Massachusetts.  But this is not all.  It requires no greater power to grant a monopoly of trade, than a monopoly of navigation.  Of course, New York, if these acts can be maintained, may give an exclusive right of entry of vessels into her ports; and the other States may do the same.  These are not extreme cases.  We have only to suppose that other States should do what New York has already done, and that the power should be carried to its full extent.

To all this, no answer is to be given but one, that the concurrent power of the States, concurrent though it be, is yet subordinate to the legislation of Congress; and that therefore Congress may, whenever it pleases, annul the State legislation; but until it does so annul it, the State legislation is valid and effectual.  What is there to recommend a construction which leads to a result like this?  Here would be a perpetual hostility; one legislature enacting laws, till another legislature should repeal them; one sovereign power giving the rule, till another sovereign power should abrogate it; and all this under the idea of concurrent legislation!