ty and consistency at which the Constitution aimed
on all subjects of a commercial character affecting the intercourse of
the States with each other or with foreign states."[402] However, the
framers of the Constitution could not have contemplated that the law
should remain ever the same, especially as Congress "has authority under
the commercial power, if no other, to introduce such changes as are
likely to be needed."[403] Sixteen years later in the Garnett case[404]
Justice Bradley, speaking for a unanimous court, asserted that the power
of Congress to amend the maritime law is coextensive with that law and
not limited by the boundaries of the commerce clause, and that the
maritime law is "subject to such amendments as Congress may see fit to
adopt."[405] Likewise, Justice McReynolds in Southern Pacific Co. _v._
Jensen[406] emphasizes Congress' "paramount power to fix and determine
the maritime law which shall prevail throughout the country," albeit in
the absence of a controlling statute the general maritime law prevails;
and the language of Knickerbocker Ice Co. _v._ Stewart[407] is to like
effect, as is also that of Swanson _v._ Marra Bros.,[408] decided in
1946.

The law administered by the federal courts sitting in admiralty is
therefore an amalgam of the general maritime law insofar as it is
acceptable to the courts, modifications of that law by Congressional
enactments, the common law of torts and contracts as modified by State
or National legislation, and international prize law. This body of law,
however, is subject at all times to the paramount authority of Congress
to change it in pursuance of its powers under the commerce clause, the
admiralty and maritime clause, and the necessary and proper clause. That
portion of the Jensen opinion emphasizing Congressional power in this
respect has never been in issue in either the opinions of the dissenters
in that case or in subsequent opinions critical of it, which in effect
invite Congress to exercise its power to modify the maritime law.[409]

Cases to Which the United States Is a Party: Right of the United States
To Sue

As Justice Story pointed out in his Commentaries, "It would be a perfect
novelty in the history of national jurisprudence, as well as of public
law, that a sovereign had no authority to sue in his own courts."[410]
As early as 1818 the Supreme Court ruled that the United States could
sue in its own name in all cases of contract without Congr