390 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
CHAPTER III. 
THE PoLicE PowER AND THE ‘‘ COMMERCIAL POWER’”’ OF CON- 
GRESS COLLIDE IN THE ‘‘ PASSENGER CASES.’’ 
Two years later in the 1 Passenger cases the police power and the 
commerce clause of the federal constitution appeared again in 
conflict in the United States Supreme Court. This was a signal 
for a renewal upon a still larger scale of the judicial debate over 
the relations of these two subjects. It gradually appeared that 
Chief Justice Taney and Justice McLean were the protagonists for 
the respective sides, if sides there were, where each judge repu- 
diated more or less of the reasons for his position given by those 
who agreed with him. These cases, originating in 1841 and decided 
in 1848, were in some degree a triumph of the commerce clause in 
the constitution and of the doctrine of exclusive power in Con- 
gress over that subject and a recession from the assertion of a 
‘*complete, unqualified and absolute’’ police power in the states as 
declared in the City of New York vs. Miln. The discussion was 
even longer than in the License cases. The latter had occupied one 
hundred and twenty-nine pages in 5th Howard's Reports. The 
Passenger cases filled two hundred and sixty-nine pages in 7¢h 
Howard. 
By a law of the state of New York the health commissioners of 
the city of that name were authorized to collect and receive, and 
in case of failure to pay to sue for and recover of the master of 
every ship arriving in its harbor $1.50 for each cabin passenger 
and $1.00 for each steerage passenger and mariner, and from each 
coasting vessel twenty-five cents for each person on board. Coast- 
ing vessels from New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island were 
only to pay once a month. Such money was to be denominated 
‘« Hospital Moneys,’’ and the master was authorized to collect it 
from his passengers and crew. A failure for twenty-four hours after 
arrival on the part of the master to make such payment subjected 
him to a penalty of one hundred dollars. The health commis- 
sioners were to account annually to the state comptroller for all 
17 How., 283. 
