upon giving up the registry; and, enrolled and licensed vessels may be registered on giving up the enrolment and license. Vessels enrolled and licensed for the coasting trade, cannot, under penalty of forfeiture, proceed on a foreign voyage, without giving up their enrolment and license, and receiving a registry.

§ 225. Vessels owned by American citizens and employed in the foreign trade, which, on account of being foreign built, or for other cause, are refused a register, are termed unregistered vessels, and sail under the authority of a sealetter, certifying such vessel to be the property of a citizen of the United States.

§ 226. Certificates of record are granted to vessels built in the United States, but which belong wholly, or in part, to citizens or subjects of a foreign power.

The certificates of registry, and of enrolment, and licenses, are termed permanent, if the vessel belongs to the port or district where the certificate or license is issued, and temporary, if the vessel belongs to another port or district.

§ 227. Masters of vessels bound to foreign ports, are furnished by the collectors with a list of their crew, distinguishing foreigners from citizens, and with a certificate of citizenship to each citizen seaman, called his protection certificate. The crew-list, as required by acts of Congress and sometimes by treaties, is necessary for the protection of the crew of every vessel in the course of her voyage during a war.

[Clause 2.] "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States."

§ 228. A similar power was granted to the Continental Congress by the Articles of Confederation, (Art. 9, §5.)

Taxes and duties may not be sufficient at all times to supply the wants of the government. During wars, especially, it is often necessary to borrow money.

[Clause 3.] "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

§ 229. Commerce is defined to be an exchange of goods, wares, or property of any kind, between nations or individuals. The word, as used in the Constitution, seems to include not only traffic or barter, but intercourse and navigation.

§ 230. Under the Confederation, commerce was in a very depressed state, chiefly because of the want of power in Congress to establish and enforce regulations on the subject. Congress could, indeed, enter into treaties with foreign nations, but had no means of enforcing the observance of them by the States. Each State made its own regulations with reference to trade and commerce, and naturally sought to favour its own local interests even at the expense of the other States. These hostile restrictions led to measures of retaliation, the tendency of which was to destroy all commercial intercourse.

§ 231. This clause grants to Congress the full power of regulating foreign and domestic commerce, navigation, and intercourse. The power does not extend to internal traffic between individuals in different parts of the same State, but to the trade which may be carried on between the United States and foreign States, and among the several States, and from one State to places within the territory of another State.

232. Congress is authorized to regulate the whole subject of commerce; its power has been decided to be exclu

porters restraint

sive. A State, therefore, cannot lay a ta or on imported goods, because that would be upon the sale of imported goods, and the importation of foreign goods is a part of commerce, the regulation of which belongs solely to Congress. In like manner, certain acts of the legislature of New York granting, for a term of years, to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right to navigate the waters within the jurisdiction of that State, with steamboats, were held to be violations of this clause of the Constitution, and therefore void, so far as they prohibited vessels licensed under the laws of the United States to carry on the coasting trade, from navigating the same waters.

on

§ 233. The authority granted by this clause extends to fisheries along the coast, the government of seamen board of American ships, to the subject of wrecks, to the enactment of pilotage laws, and of laws regulating quarantine.

Quarantine is a period of time during which a vessel arriving in port, and suspected of being infected with a malignant or contagious disease, is not allowed to communicate with the shore, except under particular restrictions. The object of compelling a vessel to perform quarantine, is to prevent the introduction of disease into the country.

§ 234. This authority extends also to the construction of light-houses and of buoys, to clearing rivers, harbours, and bays of obstructions to navigation, and to constituting ports for the entry of goods; it likewise includes the laying of a temporary embargo, but not of a perpe tual embargo, because that would have the effect of destroying, not of regulating, commerce. An embargo is a restraint or prohibition on vessels, to prevent their leaving a port.

§ 235. The laws which exist in many of the States providing for the inspection of certain articles, such as flour, meat, &c., the laws of the States for regulating their internal commerce, and those with respect to turnpike-roads, ferries, &c., are valid, and are not within the power given to Congress to regulate commerce.

§ 236. By the Articles of Confederation, (Art. 9, sec. 4,) Congress was empowered to regulate the trade and manage all affairs with the Indians who were not members of any of the States, provided the legislative right of any State within its own limits was not infringed. The Constitution, however, gives to Congress the power of regulating commerce with the Indian tribes wherever situated, whether they be within or without the limits of a particular State or of the United States. The Indian tribes within a State, or in the national territories, are regarded as domestic nations, exercising the powers of government, but dependant on the United States, and holding their territory only by right of occupancy.

[Clause 4.] "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States."

§ 237. Naturalization means the act by which an alien, or foreigner, becomes a citizen of the United States.

Under the Confederation, each State possessed the power to naturalize aliens. The regulations upon the subject, and the qualifications required by the different States, were various, which led to confusion and to conflicts; for some States required a short, others a long period, of previous residence.

§ 238. The Articles of Confederation (Art. 4) declared that the free inhabitants of each State were entitled to the

privileges of citizens in all other States. A foreigner, by becoming naturalized in a State which required a short period of previous residence, could then remove into a State which required a long period, obtain the privileges of a citizen there, and thus evade the laws of the latter State.

§ 239. To remedy the evils in this respect existing under the Confederation, the Constitution gives Congress the power to establish a rule of naturalization which shall be uniform throughout the whole country. This clause does not in express terms prohibit the States from establishing rules of naturalization; but it has been held that the power of Congress is necessarily exclusive, and operates to restrain the States, because, if each State had power to establish a distinct rule for itself, there would probably be no uniform rule.

§ 240. By an act of Congress, passed in 1790, a foreigner was required to reside two years in the United States before he could become naturalized; in 1795, the period of previous residence was extended to five years; in 1798, it was still farther extended to fourteen years; in 1802, it was again reduced to five years, where it remains at present.

§ 241. Any alien, being a free white person, in order to become a citizen of the United States, must first declare on oath, or affirmation, before some national or State. court, at least two years before his application for admission as a citizen, that it is his intention, in good faith, to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce all allegiance to the government of which he is at the time a subject. This is commonly called his declaration of intention.

§ 242. Afterward, at the time of his application, he must swear to support the Constitution of the United