Noah Haynes Swayne

“ They fence out many evils, and promote largely the convenience and the welfare of those engaged in this field of enterprise. Perhaps it is hardly too strong language to say, they are well nigh vital to commerce itself. It may be conceded, also, that foreign steamships and other vessels visiting the ports of a State for business purposes may be made liable by the laws of such State for all reasonable and proper port charges. This is but a fair return for the benefits received. But such charges must not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. Any conflict is fatal to them. ”

“ All ships or vessels of the United States of one hundred tons burden or more, except lighters, tugs, barges and canal-boats, sound and river steamboats employed on regular lines, and all ships or vessels that are permitted by the laws of the United States to enter on the same terms as vessels of the United States, which shall enter the port of New York, or load or unload, or make fast to any wharf therein, shall pay one and one half of one cent per ton, to be computed from the tonnage expressed in the registers of enrolments of such ships or vessels respectively ”

“ To one class of vessels it applies the rate here in question, to another class double that rate, and to yet another class none at all. Those belonging to the latter are wholly exempted.
We think a clearer case of the imposition of a tonnage duty than is presented in the record before us can hardly be imagined. If the law had been passed by Congress instead of the State, and the charge imposed had been expressly designated a tonnage duty, its character as such could not appear in a stronger light. But the name is immaterial: it is the substance we are to consider. ”