3t4 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
no means to be understood in any manner whatsoever to doubt or inter- 
fere with the police power belonging to the states in virtue of their gen- 
eral sovereignty. That police power extends over all the subjects with- 
in the territorial limits of the state, and has never been conceded to the 
United States”... . “It is entirely distinguishable,’ he says, “‘ from 
the right and duty of claiming and delivering slaves which comes from 
the constitution of the United States.” 
He has no doubt of the jurisdiction of the state in exercise of 
such police power to arrest, restrain or remove runaway slaves, like 
other evil-doers. 
“The rights of the owners like those of other property holders are held 
subject to this police power.”’ ‘‘ But such regulations can never be per- 
mitted to interfere with or obstruct the just rights of the owner to reclaim 
his slaves derived from the constitution of the United States, or with the 
remedies prescribed by Congress to aid and enforce the same.” 
In the same case Chief Justice Taney’s concurring opinion, while 
disagreeing as to the exclusiveness of the right in Congress to legis- 
late on the matter of fugitive slaves, also discusses the relation of 
that subject to the police power, or, as he calls it, ‘‘ police powers.”’ 
Evidently, it was hard for the great lawyer to take up the new 
phrase, and harder still for his logical mind to ignore the incongru- 
ous elements embraced within it. The logic with which he assails 
Judge Story’s assertion of complete exclusiveness of right on the 
part of Congress to deal with this fugitive slave question is inter- 
esting in itself, and still more so in its relation to the later cases, 
notably the ‘‘ original package case’’ of Leisy vs. Hardin,’ and its 
assertion of a like exclusive power in Congress over interstate com- 
merce. 
It seems hard to avoid Judge Taney’s’ conclusion that legislation 
of the states which contravenes neither the right as granted by the 
Constitution, nor the remedies enacted by Congress for its viola- 
tion, must be unobjectionable. We are not, however, at thismoment 
so much concerned with this question of exclusiveness of Congres- 
sional power. Its connection with the development of the police 
power was then disclosed only in the beginning. The long debate 
among the Supreme judges as to whether legislation of the states 
on various commercial subjects should be sustained as an exercise 
a 785 a Se, TOO: 
2 See Webster’s speech of March 7, 1852, in Senate. 
