Morrison Waite

“ Commerce has nothing to do with land while producing, but only with the product after it has become the subject of trade. Virginia, owning land under water adapted to the propagation and improvement of oysters, has seen fit to grant the exclusive use of it for that purpose to the citizens of the State. In this way the people of Virginia may be enabled to produce what the people of the other States cannot; but that is because they own property which the others do not. Their productions do not spring from commerce, but commerce to some extent from them. ”

“ And as all concede that a State may grant to one of its citizens the exclusive use of a part of the common property, the conclusion would seem to follow, that it might by appropriate legislation confine the use of the whole to its own people alone. ”

“ Neither do we think this case is at all affected by the clause of the Constitution which confers power on Congress to regulate commerce. Art. 1, sect. 8. There is here no question of transportation or exchange of commodities, but only of cultivation and production. ”