Edward Douglass White

“ The right which the people of the state thus acquire comes not from their citizenship alone, but from their citizenship and property combined. It is, in fact, a property right, and not a mere privilege or immunity of citizenship.' True it is that the rights which were thus held to exist in the states were declared to be 'subject to the paramount right of navigation, the regulation of which, in respect to foreign and interstate commerce, has been granted to the United States;' but with that dominant right we are not here concerned. ”

“ In like manner the states own the tide waters themselves, and the fish in them, so far as they are capable of ownership while running. For this purpose the state represents its people, and the ownership is that of the people in their united sovereignty. ”

“ If the premise upon which the first rests be correct, that is to say, the assumption that the act, when rightly construed, applies to sponges taken or gathered from land under water within the territorial limits of the state of Florida or other states, the repugnancy of the act to the Constitution would plainly be established by the decisions of this court. ”