The government class book / Designed for the instruction of youth in the principles of constitutional government and the rights and duties of citizens.

by Andrew W. Young

Chapter XXXIII.

Power to regulate Commerce, continued. Navigation; Commerce among the States, and with the Indian Tribes.

§1. In regulating foreign commerce, congress has also passed navigation laws. Navigation is the art of conducting ships and other vessels. It has reference also to the rules to be observed by owners and masters engaged in the shipping trade. We have noticed the navigation acts of Great Britain by which she built up her shipping interest; (Chap. XXVII, §7,) and we have stated that one object of the power to regulate commerce was to countervail the effects of those acts upon our shipping.

§2. To encourage and promote domestic navigation, an act was passed by the first congress conferring special privileges upon vessels built and owned by citizens of the United States. This was done by laying duties on tunnage. Tunnage means the content of a ship, or the burden that it will carry, which is ascertained by measurement, 42 cubic feet being allowed to a tun. This act imposed a duty of fifty cents a tun on foreign vessels, and upon our own a duty of only six cents a tun. As such a law discriminates, or makes a distinction or difference between domestic and foreign vessels, these duties are also called discriminating duties.

§3. By the aid of these protective duties, slightly changed from time to time, our shipping interest acquired great strength. But the necessity of discriminating duties no longer exists. By the stipulations of existing treaties between the principal commercial nations, each is to admit into her ports the vessels of the others on equal terms with her own. Our government having become a party to this agreement, discriminating tunnage duties have been abolished.

§4. The registry, however, of vessels of the United States, and other regulations concerning them, are for the most part continued. A vessel is measured by a surveyor to ascertain her tunnage, and the collector records or registers in a book her name, the port to which she belongs, her burden or tunnage, and the name of the place in which she was built, and gives to the owner or commander a certificate of such registry.

§5. The master of a vessel departing from the United States, bound to a foreign port, must deliver to the collector of the district, a manifest, which is an invoice, or account of the particulars of a cargo of goods, and of their prices or value. This statement is subscribed by the master, and sworn by him to be true. The collector then grants a clearance, for the vessel, which is a certificate stating that the commander has cleared his vessel according to law.

§6. Vessels of the United States going to foreign countries, are, at the request of the masters, furnished with passports. A passport is a writing from the proper authority of a state or kingdom, granting permission to pass from place to place, or to navigate some sea without hinderance or molestation. It contains the name of the vessel and that of her master, her tunnage, and the number of her crew, certifying that she belongs to the subjects of a particular state, and requiring all persons at peace with that state, to suffer her to proceed on her voyage without interruption. In this country the form of a passport is prepared by the secretary of state, and approved by the president.

§7. The navigation laws also provide for the safety of passengers and the crews of vessels, limiting the number of passengers on passenger vessels, and prescribing the quantity of water and certain kinds of provisions which merchant vessels are required to have for each person on board. They also declare what persons may be employed on board, and how funds shall be provided for sick and disabled seamen.

§8. Under the power to regulate commerce, congress has also passed laws relating to quarantines. The word quarantine, from the Latin quarantina, signifies the space of forty days. Originally vessels suspected of having contagious sickness on board, or of being infected with malignant, contagious disease, were forbidden, for forty days, to have intercourse with the place or port at which they arrived. The period for which ships are now detained is not defined, but is fixed by the proper officers at their discretion, according to circumstances. Quarantines are required by the health laws of the states; and by the laws of congress, vessels are to be subject to the health laws of the state at whose ports they arrive.

§9. In connection with the power to regulate foreign commerce, power is given to regulate "commerce among the several states," or internal commerce. We have noticed the difficulties which attended the different commercial regulations of the states, and the necessity of a uniform system, which could be had only by giving congress alone the power to regulate commerce. (Chap. XXXI., §7.) Without the power to regulate internal commerce, congress could not give effect to the power to regulate foreign commerce. One state might impose unjust and oppressive duties upon goods imported or exported through it by another state. But in the hands of congress, the power to regulate internal as well as foreign commerce, secures to all the states the benefits of a free and uninterrupted trade.

§10. In granting to congress the power to regulate commerce "with the Indian tribes," it was intended to lessen the dangers of war. Murders and war had been provoked by the improper conduct of some of the states. It was believed, that, by a uniform policy, difficulties would be more likely to be prevented; and that if they should occur, they would be more likely to be amicably settled by the general government than by a state, which, being an interested party, would be more liable to misjudge the matter in dispute, and more rigid in demanding satisfaction for injuries, as well as more severe in redressing them.