A Letter, Addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden, Esquire; In Answerto the Strictures, Contained in His "Life of Robert Fulton", Upon the Report of the ... Steam Navigation, Presented to the Legislatur - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1817. Excerpt: ... tioned by some of the most enlightened jurists of other1 states, notwithstanding it has been affirmed by a decision of our Superior Courts: but, it is still doubted by some amongst the most liberal and best informed of our own citizens, whether the claims of an individual State, to grant exclusive privileges, and to interdict a vessel bearing a license under the revenue laws of the Union, from navigating any of the waters within this State, communicating with the ocean, are to be reconciled with the powers Tested by the Federal Constitution in the Congress " to secure to "inventors the. exclusive right.to their discoveries," and " to re"gulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several ' states." These questions have never yet been decided in the Federal Courts, where alone they can finally be settled.--And by the operation of an act passed by the Legislature of this State, on the llth of April, 1808, and of another act passed on the 9th of April, 1811, it appears to your petitioners, that insurmountable obstacles are interposed to raising those important points in any case arising in this state, until these laws shall be repealed. By the second section of the act of 1808, the absolute forfeiture is given of any boat moved by steam or fire, which shall attempt to navigate the waters of this state, without a license from the representatives of Messrs. Livingston and Fulton, although the value of such boats mqst necessarily be great, and the actual damage which they may have sustained may be merely nominal.--And fcy the act of 1811, this forfeiture is declared to accrue upon the day in which the attempt so to navigate without a license, shall first be made, and from that period the propriety of the boat is transferred to the representatives of Mes...