6668. PIERS, Power to build.—[continued].
The act of Congress of 1789, c. 9, assumes on the General Government
the maintenance and repair of all lighthouses,
beacons, buoys, and public piers then existing,
and provides for the building a new lighthouse.
This was done under the authority given by the
Constitution “to regulate commerce”, and was
contested at the time as not within the meaning
of its terms, and yielded to only on the urgent
necessity of the case. The act of 1802, c. 20,
f. 8, for repairing and erecting public piers in
the Delaware, does not take any new ground—
it is in strict conformity with the act of 1789.
While we pursue, then, the construction of the
Legislature, that the repairing and erecting
lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and piers, is authorized
as belonging to the regulation of commerce,
we must take care not to go ahead of
them, and strain the meaning of the terms still
further to the clearing out the channels of all
the rivers, &c., of the United States. The removing
a sunken vessel is not the repairing of
a pier. How far the authority “to levy taxes to
provide for the common defence”, and that
“for providing and maintaining a navy”, May
authorize the removing obstructions in a river
or harbor, is a question not involved in the
present case.—
To Albert Gallatin. Washington ed. iv, 478.
(April. 1803)
