Opinion of the Court.

contribute services in preventing the importation of disease, it was provided that "there shall be no interference in any manner with any quarantine laws or regulations as they now exist or may hereafter be adopted under State laws," showing very clearly the intention of Congress to adopt these laws, or to recognize the power of the States to pass them.

2. But, aside from this, quarantine laws belong to that class of State legislation which, whether passed with intent to regulate commerce or not, must be admitted to have that effect, and which are valid until displaced or contravened by some legisla tion of Congress.

The matter is one in which the rules that should govern it may in many respects be different in different localities, and for that reason be better understood and more wisely established by the local authorities. The practice which should control a quarantine station on the Mississippi River, a hundred miles from the sea, may be widely and wisely different from that which is best for the harbor of New York. In this respect the case falls within the principle which governed the cases of Willson v. Blackbird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245; Cooley v. The Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 727; Pound v. Turk, 95 U. S. 459, 462; Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485, 488; Packet Co. v. Catlettsburg, 105 U. S. 559, 562; Transportation Co. v. Parkersburg, 107 U. S. 691, 702; Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U. S. 678.

This principle has been so often considered in this court that extended comment on it here is not needed. Quarantine laws are so analogous in most of their features to pilotage laws in their relation to commerce that no reason can be seen why the same principle should not apply. In one of the latest of the cases cited above, the town of Catlettsburg, on the Ohio River, had enacted that no vessel should, without permission of the wharfmaster, land at any other point on the bank of the river within the town than a space designated by the ordinance. This court said, "that, if this be a regulation of commerce under the power conferred on Congress by the Constitution, that body has signally failed to provide any such regulation. It belongs, also, manifestly to that class of rules which, like pilotage and

VOL. CXVIII-30

Opinion of the Court.

some others, can be most wisely exercised by local authorities, and in regard to which no general rules applicable alike to all ports and landing places can be properly made. If a regulation of commerce at all, it comes within that class in which the States may prescribe rules until Congress assumes to do so."

For the period of nearly a century since the government was organized Congress has passed no quarantine law, nor any other law to protect the inhabitants of the United States against the invasion of contagious and infectious diseases from abroad; and yet during the early part of the present century, for many years the cities of the Atlantic coast, from Boston and New York to Charleston, were devastated by the yellow fever. In later times the cholera has made similar invasions; and the yellow fever has been unchecked in its fearful course in the Southern cities, New Orleans especially, for several generations. During all this time the Congress of the United States never attempted to exercise this or any other power to protect the people from the ravages of these dreadful diseases. No doubt they believed that the power to do this belonged to the States. Or, if it ever occurred to any of its members that Congress might do something in that way, they probably believed that what ought to be done could be better and more wisely done by the authorities of the States who were familiar with the matter.

But to be told now that the requirement of a vessel charged with contagion, or just from an infected city, to submit to examination and pay the cost of it is forbidden by the Constitution because only Congress can do that, is a strong reproach upon the wisdom of a hundred years past, or an overstrained construction of the Constitution.

It is said that the charge to the vessel for the officer's service in examining her is not a necessary part of quarantine. system. It has always been held to be a part in all other countries, and in all quarantine stations in the United States. No reason is perceived for selecting this item from the general system and calling it a regulation of commerce, while the remainder is not. If the arrest of the vessel, the detention of its passengers, the cleansing process it is ordered to go through

Opinion of the Court.

with, are less important as regulations of commerce than the exaction of the examination fee, it is not easily to be seen.

We think the proposition untenable.

There remains to be considered the objection that the law is forbidden by paragraph six of section nine of the first article of the Constitution, which declares that "no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another."

It is not readily perceived how this quarantine statute of Louisiana, and particularly the fees of the quarantine officers, do give such a preference. Are the ports of Louisiana given a preference over ports of other States? Are the ports of any other State given a preference over those of Louisiana? Or are the ports of other States given a preference as among themselves. Nothing of this is pointed out.

The eighth section of this first article of the Constitution is devoted exclusively to defining the powers conferred on Congress.

The ninth section, including the above paragraph, is in like manner devoted to restraints upon the power of Congress and of the National Government; and the tenth section contains only restraints upon the powers of the States, by declaring what they shall not do. The most casual inspection shows this, and the clause of the Constitution here relied on is not found among the restrictions of the States, but among those imposed upon the Federal Government: As the matter under discussion is the validity of the statute of Louisiana, it is unaffected by the constitutional provision alluded to. Woodbury, J., in Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 541; The Brig Wilson v. United States, 1 Brock. 423, 432; Butler v. Hopper, 1 Wash. C. C. 499; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, 435; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 135.

We see no error in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and it is

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY dissented.

Affirmed.

Syllabus.

THE CITY OF NORWICH.

PLACE & Others v. NORWICH & NEW YORK TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Argued November 16, 17, 1886.-Decided May 10, 1886.

In a case of collision occasioned by the negligence of the officers or hands of one of the vessels, without any neglect, privity, or knowledge of her owner, and where said vessel took fire and sank with loss of cargo, and never completed her voyage nor earned any freight, but was afterwards raised and repaired, and was then libelled and seized on behalf of the owners of her cargo, and claimed and bonded at her then value by her owner, who filed an answer and a petition for limited liability; and where it further appeared that the owner received certain moneys for insurance of the ship against loss by fire, Held:

(1.) That the owner was entitled to a limitation of liability to the value of his interest in ship and freight under the act of 1851. Sections 4282-4287 Rev. Stat.

(2.) That the point of time at which the amount or value of the owner's interest in ship and freight is to be taken for fixing his liability is the termination of the voyage on which the loss or damage occurs.

(3.) That if the ship is lost at sea, or the voyage be otherwise broken up before arriving at her port of destination, the voyage is then terminated for the purpose of fixing the owner's liability.

(4.) That in the present case, the voyage was terminated when the ship had sunk, and that her value at that time was the limit of the owner's liability; and that the subsequent raising of the wreck and repair of the ship, giving her an increased value, had nothing to do with the liability of the

owner.

(5.) That no freight except what is earned is to be estimated in fixing the amount of the owner's liability.

(6.) That insurance is no part of the owner's interest in the ship or freight within the meaning of the law, and does not enter into the amount for which the owner is held liable.

(7.) That the limitation of liability is applicable to proceedings in rem against the ship as well as to proceedings in personam against the owner; the limitation extends to the owner's property as well as to his person.

(8.) That the right to proceed for a limitation of liability, is not lost or waived by a surrender of the ship to underwriters.

In this case, although an application for limitation of liability had been origi.

Statement of Facts.

nally overruled by the District Court, and an interlocutory decree had been rendered in favor of the libellants for their entire damage, with a reference for proofs and a report by the master; yet the court, after the decision of this court in Norwich Co. v. Wright, 13 Wall. 104, relating to the same collision, and the promulgation of the additional rules adopted by this court, received a new petition and ordered a new appraisement to ascertain the value of the ship whilst lying sunk; and made a decree limiting the liability of the owner to the value at that time: Held that the District Court had jurisdiction to receive such new petition and to take such proceedings.

The case was stated by the court as follows:

This case arose out of a collision which occurred on Long Island Sound, opposite Huntington, on the 18th of April, 1866, between the Steamboat City of Norwich, belonging to the Norwich and New York Transportation Company, the appellees, and the schooner General S. Van Vliet, belonging to William A. Wright and others, appellants, by which the schooner and her cargo were sunk and lost, and the steamboat was set on fire and sunk, and her cargo lost. The owners of the schooner filed a libel in personam in the District Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut, against the owners of the steamboat, and obtained a decree for about $20,000 for the schooner, and about $2000 for her cargo, with interest. Before the decree was passed, the respondents filed a petition, stating that proceedings in rem had been commenced against the steamboat in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York, for the recovery of damages for the loss of the cargo on board said steamboat; and they prayed leave to show the whole amount of damages sustained by all parties, and the value of the steamer and her freight then pending; and that the libellants might have a decree for only such proportion of damages sustained by them as the value of steamer and freight bore to the whole amount of damages sustained by all parties by the collision; this claim being made under the limited liability act of 1851. The District Court denied the prayer of this petition, holding that it had no jurisdiction to give relief. On appeal to the Circuit Court the decree was affirmed, and the petition for limitation of liability was denied on the ground that cases of collision were not within the act. The case then