58 COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



allude to is rather the police power; the power vested in the legislature 

 by the constitution to make, ordain, and establish all manner of whole- 

 some and reasonable laws, statutes, and ordinances, either with 

 penalties or without, not repugnant to the constitution, as they shall 

 judge to be for the good and welfare of the Commonwealth, and of the 

 subjects of the same. It is much easier to perceive and realize the 

 existence and sources of this power than to mark its boundaries, or 

 prescribe limits to its exercise.' 



" 'This police power of the State/ says another eminent judge, 

 ' extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and 

 quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the State. 

 According to the maxim, Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, which 

 being of universal application, it must, of course, be within the range 

 of legislative action to define the mode and manner in which every 

 one may so use his own as not to injure others.' And again: (By 

 this) 'general police power of the State, persons and property are 

 are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure 

 the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of the per- 

 fect in the legislature to do which, no question ever was, or, upon 

 acknowledged general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural 

 persons are concerned.' And neither the power itself, nor the dis- 

 cretion to exercise it as need may require, can be bargained away by 

 the State. 



"In the American constitutional system, the power to establish the 

 ordinary regulations of police has been left with the individual States, 

 and it cannot be taken from them, either wholly or in part, and exer- 

 cised under legislation of Congress. Neither can the national govern- 

 ment, through any of its departments or officers, assume any super- 

 vision of the police regulations of the States. All that the federal 

 authority can do is to see that the States do not, under cover of this 

 power, invade the sphere of national sovereignty, obstruct or impede 

 the exercise of any authority which the Constitution has confided 

 to the nation, or deprive any citizen of rights guaranteed by the 

 federal Constitution." Cooley, Const. Lim. 7th Ed. p. 829, et seq. 



