hat act under the protection and subject to the laws of the
individual State within which it was.
To the other powers of the General Government the same remarks are
applicable and with greater force. The right to regulate commerce with
foreign powers was necessary as well to enable Congress to lay and
collect duties and imposts as to support the rights of the nation in
the intercourse with foreign powers. It is executed at the ports of
the several States and operates almost altogether externally. The right
to borrow and coin money and to fix its value and that of foreign
coin are important to the establishment of a National Government, and
particularly necessary in support of the right to declare war, as,
indeed, may be considered the right to punish piracy and felonies on
the high seas and offenses against the laws of nations. The right to
establish an uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws respecting
bankruptcies seems to be essentially connected with the right to
regulate commerce. The first branch of it relates to foreigners entering
the country; the second to merchants who have failed. The right to
promote the progress of useful arts and sciences may be executed without
touching any of the individual States. It is accomplished by granting
patents to inventors and preserving models, which may be done
exclusively within the Federal district. The right to constitute courts
inferior to the Supreme Court was a necessary consequence of the
judiciary existing as a separate branch of the General Government.
Without such inferior court in every State it would be difficult and
might even be impossible to carry into effect the laws of the General
Government. The right to establish post-offices and post-roads is
essentially of the same character. For political, commercial, and social
purposes it was important that it should be vested in the General
Government. As a mere matter of regulation, and nothing more, I presume,
was intended by it, it is a power easily executed and involving little
authority within the States individually. The right to exercise
exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the Federal district
and over forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful
buildings with the consent of the State within which the same may be is
a power of a peculiar character, and is sufficient in itself to confirm
what has been said of all the other powers of the General Government.
Of this particular
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