Charles Evans Hughes

“ The matter is illuminated by the consideration of this alternative, for the point of the contention is that, there being no Federal regulation, the ferry rates are to be deemed free from all control. The practical advantages of having the matter dealt with by the states are obvious, and are illustrated by the practice of one hundred and twenty-five years. And in view of the character of the subject, we find no sound objection to its continuance. If Congress at any time undertakes to regulate such rates, its action will, of course, control. ”

“ Even if it might happen, upon this construction, that one board might establish one set of rates at one side, and another board another set on the other side, or that each state might have different regulations, where the ferry was over one of the rivers forming the boundary between this and another state, I do not see that there would be any important conflict of authority. Each power regulated what was done within its own jurisdiction, and left to others to regulate what was done in theirs. ”

“ Louis, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri. The payment of a license tax imposed upon the company in Illinois, for the privilege of conducting the ferry, was resisted under the commerce clause, but the contention was overruled, the court holding that 'the levying of a tax upon vessels or other water-craft, or the exaction of a license fee by the state within which the property subject to the exaction has its situs, is not a regulation of commerce within the meaning of the Constitution.' (Id. p. 373.) ”

“ Taylor, supra, the court upheld a judgment which restrained the appellants (the owners of a ferry from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Newport, Kentucky) from conducting the ferry from the Kentucky shore to Ohio in violation of the rights of the appellees under their Kentucky franchise. Referring to the latter, the court said:
'The franchise in confined to the transit from the shore of the state. The same rights which she claims for herself she concedes to others. . . . It was shown in the argument at bar that similar laws exist in most, if not all, the states bordering upon those streams. ”

“ The state power can extend only to the transactions within its own territory and the ferriage from its own shore. It follows that the fact that rates were fixed by New York did not preclude New Jersey from establishing reasonable rates with respect to the ferry establishment maintained on its side. ”

“ The plaintiff in error, Port Richmond & Bergen Point Ferry Company, was incorporated in 1848 by special act of the legislature of New York for the purpose of maintaining a ferry across the Kill von Kull from Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York, to Bergen Point, Hudson county, New Jersey. [1] This act prescribed rates of ferriage, as did also the amendatory acts of 1857 (chap. 692) and 1868 (chap. 778) .
The ferry is not operated in connection with any railroad. ”

“ Real Prop. 4th ed. 292. The states have been accustomed to grant such franchises not only for ferries wholly intrastate, but also for those to be operated from their shores to other states. Coolly, Const. ”