FISH LAWS OF MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO RIVER STATES. 7 
State wardens have diligently enforced the law the fishermen do not 
seriously entertain this opinion. It arises chiefly from laxity, past 
or present, on the part of State officials. 
he Mississippi Havel is a ‘‘Government”’ river in the sense that 
uestions of navigation are subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal 
overnment. But it was long ago settled by the United States 
Supreme Court that the States may protect the fisheries of navigable 
waters. In the case of Smith v. Seperate (18 Howard, 71 (1855)) 
that court decided an appeal from a conviction for dredging oysters 
in violation of the law oP Maryland. The accused, Isaac Rh. Smith, 
owner of the sloop Volant, contended that the law of the State of 
Maryland was repugnant to that part of the United States Constitu- 
tion which grants to Congress the power to regulate commerce among 
the States. In that case not only were the operations carried on in 
the navigable waters of Chesapeake Bay, but the ship was enrolled 
and licensed by the United States to be employed in the coasting 
trade and fisheries. The court affirmed the conviction, maintaining 
that the State holds the property in the soil under the waters for the 
conservation of the public rights of fishery therein, and may regulate 
the modes of that enjoyment so as to prevent the destruction of the 
fishery. ‘‘In other words, it may forbid all such acts as would render 
the public right less valuable or destroy it altogether.” 
A later Supreme Court case, Manchester v. Massachusetts (139 
U. S., 240 (1890)), was argued for the fisherman by one of the leaders 
of the bar—Joseph H. Choate. This eminent counselor said: ‘“‘We 
do not question the right of the State to regulate its own fisheries 
within its own soil or tidewaters.””’ He acknowledged that within 
the tidewaters there has been no grant of power over the fisheries to 
the United States; but he argued that the State had no jurisdiction 
upon the ocean, even within 3 miles offshore. The court, however, 
decided in favor of the State of Massachusetts, holding that the State 
possessed authority to prohibit the use of various kinds of nets in the 
navigable waters of Buzzard’s Bay. Quoting the language of the 
‘same court in an earlier opinion, it said: 
The title thus held is subject to the paramount right of navigation, the regulation of 
which, in respect to foreign and interstate commerce, has been granted to the United 
States. There has been, however, no such grant of power over the fisheries. These 
remain under the exclusive control of the State, which has consequently the right, in 
its discretion, to appropriate its tidewaters and their beds to be used by its people as a 
common for taking and cultivating fish, so far as it may be done without obstructing 
navigation. 
Whether the United States could make laws for the aientin of 
fish in navigable waters is not settled by these cases. In the Man- 
chester v. Massachusetts case the court said: 
We do not consider the question whether or not Congress would have the right to 
control the menhaden fisheries which the statute of Massachusetts assumes to control; 
but we mean to say only that, as the right of control exists in the State in the absence 
of the affirmative action of Congress taking such control, the fact that Congress has 
never assumed the control of such fisheries is persuasive evidence that the right to 
control then remains in the State. 
The Supreme Court of Iowa has held that its fish laws extend from 
bank to bank of the Mississippi. State v. Moyers (155 lowa, 678 
(1912)). The Supreme Court PP Wisconsin, on the contrary, has held 
that the laws of Minnesota for the protection of fish, control only to 
the main channel of that river. Roberts v. Fullerton (117 Wis., 222 
