In the regulation of "their own purely internal affairs," States may pass laws which, although in themselves proper, become invalid when they interfere with a National law. Is this the case with the New York steamboat monopoly acts? Have they "come into collision with an act of Congress, and deprived a citizen of a right to which that act entitles him"? If so, it matters not whether the State laws are the exercise of a concurrent power to regulate commerce, or of a power to "regulate their domestic trade and police." In either case, "the acts of New York must yield to the law of Congress."[1221]
This truth is "founded as well on the nature of the government as on the words of the constitution." The theory that if State and Nation each rightfully pass conflicting laws on the same subject, "they affect the subject, and each other, like equal opposing powers," is demolished by the "supremacy" of the Constitution and "of the laws made in pursuance of it. The nullity of any act, inconsistent with the constitution, is produced by the declaration that the constitution is the supreme law." So when a State statute, enacted under uncontrovertible State powers, conflicts with a law, treaty, or the Constitution of the Nation, the State enactment "must yield to it."[1222]
It is not the Constitution, but "those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world" that "confer the right of intercourse between state and state.... The constitution found it an existing right, and gave to Congress the power to regulate it. In the exercise of this power, Congress has passed an act" regulating the coasting trade. Any law "must imply a power to exercise the right" it confers. How absurd, then, the contention that, while the State of New York cannot prevent a vessel licensed under the National coasting law, when proceeding from a port in New Jersey to one in New York, "from enjoying ... all the privileges conferred by the act of Congress," nevertheless, the State of New York "can shut her up in her own port, and prohibit altogether her entering the waters and ports of another state"![1223]
A National license to engage in the coasting trade gives the right to navigate between ports of different States.[1224] The fact that Gibbons's boats carried passengers only did not make those vessels any the less engaged in the coasting trade than if they carried nothing but merchandise—"no clear distinction is perceived between the power to regulate vessels employed in transporting men for hire, and property for hire.... A coasting vessel employed in the transportation of passengers, is as much a portion of the American marine as one employed in the transportation of a cargo."[1225] Falling into his characteristic over-explanation, Marshall proves the obvious by many illustrations.[1226]
However the question as to the nature of the business is beside the point, since the steamboat monopoly laws are based solely on the method of propelling boats—"whether they are moved by steam or wind. If by the former, the waters of New York are closed against them, though their cargoes be dutiable goods, which the laws of the United States permit them to enter and deliver in New York. If by the latter, those waters are free to them, though they should carry passengers only." What is the injury which Ogden complains that Gibbons has done him? Not that Gibbons's boats carry passengers, but only that those vessels "are moved by steam."
"The writ of injunction and decree" of the State court "restrain these [Gibbons's] licensed vessels, not from carrying passengers, but from being moved through the waters of New York by steam, for any purpose whatever." Therefore, "the real and sole question seems to be, whether a steam machine, in actual use, deprives a vessel of the privileges conferred by a [National] license." The answer is easy—indeed, there is hardly any question to answer: "The laws of Congress, for the regulation of commerce, do not look to the principle by which vessels are moved."[1227]
Steamboats may be admitted to the coasting trade "in common with vessels using sails. They are ... entitled to the same privileges, and can no more be restrained from navigating waters, and entering ports which are free to such vessels, than if they were wafted on their voyage by the winds, instead of being propelled by the agency of fire. The one element may be as legitimately used as the other, for every commercial purpose authorized by the laws of the Union; and the act of a state inhibiting the use of either to any vessel having a license under the act of Congress comes ... in direct collision with that act."[1228]
Marshall refuses to discuss the question of Fulton's patents since, regardless of that question, the cause must be decided by the supremacy of National over State laws that regulate commerce between the States.
The Chief Justice apologizes, and very properly, for taking so "much time ... to demonstrate propositions which may have been thought axioms. It is felt that the tediousness inseparable from the endeavor to prove that which is already clear, is imputable to a considerable part of this opinion. But it was unavoidable." The question is so great, the judges, from whose conclusions "we dissent," are so eminent,[1229] the arguments at the bar so earnest, an "unbroken" statement of principles upon which the court's judgment rests so indispensable, that Marshall feels that nothing should be omitted, nothing taken for granted, nothing assumed.[1230]
Having thus placated Kent, Marshall turns upon his Virginia antagonists: "Powerful and ingenious minds, taking, as postulates, that the powers expressly granted to the government of the Union, are to be contracted, by construction, into the narrowest possible compass, and that the original powers of the States are retained, if any possible construction will retain them, may, by a course of well digested, but refined and metaphysical reasoning, founded on these premises, explain away the constitution of our country, and leave it a magnificent structure indeed, to look at, but totally unfit for use.