LAWRENCE, WILLIAM B. 



483 



Commerce has become nationalized, and now 

 partakes of an interstate character to an ex- 

 tent that was perhaps not dreamed of by the 

 framers of the Constitution. In 1870 the 

 Supreme Court, holding that a steamer whose 

 trips were made wholly within one State, was 

 subject to the laws of Congress, because trans- 

 porting things brought from or destined to 

 another State, declared that all local agencies 

 or instruments, though operating wholly within 

 the State, fall under the jurisdiction of the 

 General Government when employed in inter- 

 state commerce. " It is said," remarked the 

 court, ''that if the position here asserted be 

 sustained, there is no such thing as the domes- 

 tic trade of a State ; that Congress may take 

 the entire control of the commerce of the 

 country, and extend its regulations to the rail- 

 roads within a State on which grain or fruit is 

 transported to a distant market. We answer 

 that the present case relates to transportation 

 on the navigable waters of the United States, 

 and we are not called upon to express an opin- 

 ion upon the power of Congress over inter- 

 state commerce when carried on by land trans- 

 portation. And we further answer that we 

 are unable to draw any clear and distinct line 

 between the authority of Congress to regulate 

 an agency employed in commerce between the 

 States, when that agency extends through two 

 or more States, and when it is confined in its 

 action entirely within the limits of a single 

 State. If its authority does not extend to an 

 agency in such commerce, when that agency 

 is confined within the limits of a State, its en- 

 tire authority over interstate commerce may 

 be defeated." (The Daniel Ball, 10 Wallace, 

 566.) 



In the case of Lord against Steamship Com- 

 pany, decided during the session of 1880-'81, 

 and reported in 102 United States Reports, the 

 lines of Federal supremacy were carried by the 

 court to a frontier in State domain before un- 

 known. It held that a vessel plying exclu- 

 sively between the ports of one State, and en- 

 gaged in traffic purely and wholly internal, is 

 employed in commerce over which Congress 

 has exclusive control, provided that in making 

 its trips it goes out of the jurisdictional waters 

 of the State upon the high seas for any dis- 

 tance, however short. As vessels employed in 

 domestic trade do generally go upon the high 

 seas, the effect of this decision is to transfer 

 from a claimed State to Federal control the 

 bulk of the coasting-trade of the country, al- 

 though carried on entirely within the limits of 

 the States. 



This general outline of the decisions by the 

 Supreme Court shows a remarkable develop- 

 ment of central power on the most important 

 points affecting the relations between the 

 States and the General Government. 



LAWRENCE, WILLIAM BEACH, LL. D., an 

 American jurist and eminent writer on inter- 

 national law, was born in the city of New York, 

 October 23, 1800 ; died there, March 26, 1881. 



He was the only son of Isaac Lawrence and 

 his wife Cornelia, daughter of Dr. Abraham 

 Beach, for many years one of the ministers of 

 Trinity Church, New York, and a descendant 

 of the first white child born in the colony of 

 Connecticut. Isaac Lawrence was an opulent 

 merchant, and for many years was President 

 of the New York branch of the United States 

 Bank, and one of the presidential electors of 

 James Monroe. Lawrence's ancestors came 

 from England about the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century, and received a patent for a 

 portion of Long Island, now constituting the 

 towns of Flushing, Hempstead, and Newtown. 

 He was sent to Dr. Barry's school in Rector 

 Street, and at the age of twelve, being too 

 young to gain admission in Columbia College, 

 he entered Rutgers in New Jersey, spending 

 two years there, when he joined the former in- 

 stitution, graduating with high honors in the 

 class of 1818. Henry J. Anderson was the only 

 one above him, while James Lenox stood num- 

 ber nine in the same class. After a tour to the 

 West as far as the Mississippi, Lawrence entered 

 the office of William Slosson, an eminent New 

 York lawyer. He also spent a year under the 

 instruction of Judges Gould and Reeves, in 

 whose law-school, at Litchfield, Connecticut, 

 John C. Calhoun was then a student. During 

 the winter of 1820-'21 Mr. Lawrence visited 

 some of the leading families of South Carolina, 

 and spent several days with Jefferson at Monti- 

 cello, and with Madison at Montpelier. Soon 

 after his return to New York he married 

 Esther, daughter of Archibald Gracie, a.wealthy 

 merchant, and sailed for Europe in one of Mr. 

 Gracie's ships, carrying letters of introduction 

 from President Monroe, Secretary of State J. 

 Q. Adams, the French minister, Joseph Bona- 

 parte, his father-in-law's intimate friend and 

 frequent guest, Madison, and Jefferson, by 

 whom he was introduced to Lafayette, who en- 

 tertain'ed him and his young wife for a fortnight 

 at La Grange. They were guests of Lord Hol- 

 land at Holland House, and of the Bonapartes 

 at Rome, then a center of elegant European 

 society. 



In 1823, Mr. Lawrence returned to the United 

 States, and was there admitted as counselor to 

 the Supreme Court of New York. II is special 

 attention was given there, as previously, to po- 

 litical economy and international law, but not 

 to the exclusion of his taste for the beautiful, 

 as seen in his address in 1825 before the New 

 York Academy of Fine Arts. In 1826, at the 

 request of Albert Gallatin, he was appointed 

 secretary of legation to Great Britain, Galla- 

 tin being our embassador. and his part in the 

 negotiations may bo inferred from Mr. Galla- 

 tin's report to the State Department, that Mr. 

 Lawrence was competent alone to conduct the 

 mission. In 1827 President Adams appointed 

 him charge d'affaires, and his correspondence 

 with Lords Dudley and Aberdeen concerning 

 the settlement of the boundary of our northern 

 and northeastern frontier evinced his diplo- 



