Noah Haynes Swayne

“ Ogden, said: 'When the government of the Union was brought into existence, it found a system for the regulation of pilots in force in every State. The act which has been mentioned adopts this system, and gives it the same validity as if its provisions had been specially made by Congress.' 9 Wheat. 1, 207. The long-continued silence of Congress, with its plenary power, in the presence of such legislation by the States concerned, is itself an implied ratification and adoption, and is equivalent in its consequences to an express declaration to that effect. ”

“ All on board are endowed and subject accordingly. The pilot, upon his boat, had the same authority from the laws of New York to tender and demand employment, and the same legal consequences, under the circumstances, followed the refusal of the master as if both vessels had then been infra fauces terroe, where the municipal jurisdiction of the State was complete and exclusive. The jurisdiction of the local sovereign over a vessel, and over those belonging to her, in the home port and abroad on the sea, is, according to the law of nations, the same. ”

“ Speaking of the universal law of reason, justice, and conscience, of which the law of nations is necessarily a part, Cicero said: 'Nor is it one thing at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another in future, but among all nations it is, and in all time will be, eternally and immutably the same.' Lactantius Inst. Div., bk. 7, c. 8.
3. Conceding that the pilot laws of the several States are regulations of commerce, Mr. Justice Story said, 'They have been adopted by Congress, and without question are controllable by it.' 2 Story, Const., sect. ”