ississippi, but also those of the Great Lakes. To this
construction it was with truth objected that, in so far as concerns the
lakes, they are in fact seas, although of freshwater; that they are the
natural marine communications between a series of populous States and
between them and the possessions of a foreign nation; that they are
actually navigated by ships of commerce of the largest capacity; that
they had once been and might again be the scene of foreign war; and that
therefore it was doing violence to all reason to undertake by means of
an arbitrary doctrine of technical foreign law to exclude such waters
from the jurisdiction of the General Government. In regard to the river
Mississippi, it was objected that to draw a line across that river at
the point of ebb and flood of tide, and say that the part below was
public navigable water and the part above not, while in the latter the
water was at least equally deep and navigable and its commerce as rich
as in the former, with numerous ports of foreign entry and delivery, was
to sanction a distinction artificial and unjust, because regardless of
the real fact of navigability.

We may conceive that some such considerations led to the enactment in
the year 1845 of an act in addition to that of 1789, declaring that--

The district courts of the United States shall have, possess, and
exercise the same jurisdiction in matters of contract and tort arising
in, upon, or concerning steamboats and other vessels of 20 tons burden
and upward, enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade and at the time
employed in business of commerce and navigation between ports and places
in different States and Territories upon the lakes and navigable waters
connecting said lakes, as is now possessed and exercised by the said
courts in cases of the like steamboats and other vessels employed in
navigation and commerce upon the high seas or tide waters within the
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States.

It is observable that the act of 1789 applies the jurisdiction of the
United States to all "waters which are navigable from the sea" for
vessels of 10 tons burden, and that of 1845 extends the jurisdiction to
enrolled vessels of 20 tons burden, on the lakes and navigable waters
connecting said lakes, though not waters navigable from the sea,
provided such vessels be employed between places in different States and
Territories.

Thus it appears that th