Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It is a doctrine too well settled, and a practice too common and too essential to the interests of commerce and navigation to admit of a doubt, that for the use of such structures, erected by individual enterprise, and recognized everywhere as private property, a reasonable compensation can be exacted. And it may be safely admitted also that it is within the power of the State to regulate this compensation, so as to prevent extortion, a power which is often very properly delegated to the local municipal authority. ”

“ The tax is also the same for a vessel which is moored in any part of the port of New Orleans, whether she ties up to a wharf or not, or is located at the shore or in the middle of the river. A tax which is, by its terms, due from all vessels arriving and stopping in a port, without regard to the place where they may stop, whether it be in the channel of the stream, or out in a bay, or landed at a natural river-bank, cannot be treated as a compensation for the use of a wharf. ”

“ We are better satisfied with this construction of the Constitution from the fact that this is one of the few limitations of that instrument of the power of the States which is not absolute, but which may be removed wholly or modified by the consent of Congress. ”