1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 389 
stitutions on the other could enlarge or diminish their respective 
holdings. According to this a hard and fast line had been drawn 
over which neither could step, either for good or for evil. 
The practical consequences of such a dispute in the court ata 
time when the differences between the sections were rapidly draw- 
ing to a crisis may be easily seen. That Taney’s is the more 
practical and statesmanlike view seems clear; that it is supported 
by a closer following of historical development seems also true. It 
was not, however, sufficiently in accordance with the desire for 
sharp distinctions, the effort to hold the states and the national 
government clearly apart, which characterized both popular and 
professional sentiment at that time. The followers of the prevalent 
modern doctrine of the exclusive power of Congress over interstate 
and foreign commerce and of an entirely separate domain of police 
power may style themselves and 'be styled the school of Marshall, 
but they can prove their position by their master only on the 
authority of Judge Story in a dissenting opinion written after the 
great chief justice was no more. 
To appreciate the importance attached to every shred of power 
by the adherents of state and national authority respectively, the 
steadily growing slavery discussion and sectional bitterness must be 
kept in mind. The license cases are almost precisely contemporary 
with the Wilmot proviso, and the mission of Mr. Samuel Hoar to 
South Carolina as agent of the commonwealth of Massachusetts to 
look after the interests of colored seamen, her citizens, seized from 
their vessels in Charleston harbor. He left the city on the advice 
of the city and state authorities that he was not safe, and they 
could not and would not protect him. 
1 Harvard Law Review, Vol. xii; 359. 
