Peter Vivian Daniel

“ Congress have, by statute already referred to, undertaken to regulate the commerce upon the Ohio River, so far as the matters involved in this controversy are concerned. And who shall question their power to do this? Does it belong to this court, under any article or clause of the constitution, or of any statute, to assume such a superiority? Congress have ordained that the vehicles of commerce on the Ohio, the steamboats, shall so graduate the height of their chimneys, as not to interfere with the bridges at Wheeling, as existing at the date of the statute. ”

“ If indeed it should be contended that this section of the statute was designed to confer, or by its terms purported to confer upon the circuit courts, or upon the judges thereof, the jurisdiction and functions of the supreme court, then must that section, so far at least, be rejected as absolutely void, being in violation of the constitution.
The supreme court of the United States is the creature of the constitution. ”

“ They have at the same time by what they have done, secured to the government, and to the public at large, the essential advantage of a safe and certain transit over the Ohio-an advantage which, previously to the erection of the Wheeling bridge, was greatly desired but never attained. ”

“ This mandate therefore, was itself a palpable violation of the decree of this court, and of rights reserved to the defendants by that decree-rights which they twice evinced their readiness to vindicate before this court, in opposition to the reiterated, but subsequently abandoned attempts by the complainant to assail them. ”

“ In the next place, so far as usefulness or efficiency may be supposed to have been the objects of the statute, much of these are taken away by denying to the courts the power claimed for the judges out of court to act upon persons or property beyond the bounds of the respective circuits. ”