SPHERE OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 33 



to decrease in quantity. No longer was it possible to take 

 one's gun of an evening, step out into one's own backyard, 

 and return shortly with a haunch of venison for the next 

 morning's breakfast. The modern shotgun replaced the 

 flintlock, the steamboat the sailing vessel, the automobile 

 the stagecoach, paved highways the blazed trail, and each 

 of these changes meant that wild life, whether on sea or 

 land, decreased in numbers the more rapidly. The need for 

 conservation became increasingly evident, and yet adequate 

 conservation measures depended upon action by the national 

 government in many instances. 



In the field of conservation as in most other fields of 

 activity, the difficulty has been met not by formal amend- 

 ment of the national constitution but through a practice of 

 broad interpretation at the hands of the courts. Under the 

 leadership of John Marshall, powers expressly granted the 

 national government were interpreted by the Supreme Court 

 in such a way as to give them flexibility and, within limits, 

 an adaptability to the changing needs of the developing 

 nation. 6 



As a result the principle was definitely established that 

 the national government had any power which might be 

 reasonably implied from those expressly delegated to it by 

 the constitution and which was not expressly prohibited. 

 One might say then that the national government is limited 

 to powers granted it by the constitution, but these powers 

 are to be broadly interpreted as befits powers granted to a 

 government. 



Every power exercised by the national government in the 

 field of conservation, therefore, must be traced back to some 

 authority expressly delegated to it by the constitution or 

 which may be reasonably implied from such expressed 



6 See McCidlough T>. Maryland, 4 Wheaton 473, 481 (1819), and 

 Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheaton 187, 189 (1824). 



