436 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
view of Judge Shaw as set forth in Commonwealth vs. Alger. 
Judge Sedgwick evidently regards the police power and the , “ gen- 
eral power over private property which is necessary for the orderly 
existence of all governments” as being the same thing. He dis- 
cusses the police power mainly as a limitation on rights of private 
property, and with regard to the extent to which it must be held 
to qualify the apparently absolute guarantees of such property rights 
in state and federal constitutions. 
His point of view is that which regards the power as one of con- 
trol for the benefit of society and as a great reserved social right 
not mentioned by the constitutions but in view of which they are 
always to be interpreted. It is with him, as with the judges we 
have so far seen dealing with it, a designation for the indefinite 
remainder of government authority which is left when the familiar 
and more or less definite forms are abstracted. 
Besides Commonwealth vs. Alger, Judge Sedgwick quotes most 
prominently ? Vanderbilt vs. Adams. He does not seem to have 
noticed Chief Justice Redfield’s opinion in Thorpe vs. Rutland, 
Etc., Ry. Co., though he notes with approval the adoption by that 
distinguished judge in * Armington e¢ a/. vs. Barnet of the doctrine 
of the case of * Charles River Bridge vs. Warren Bridge. 
At the same term with the case of Murray vs. Hoboken Land 
Company, the case of ' Smith vs. Maryland was passed upon in an 
opinion also by Justice Curtis. In that case the state of Maryland 
had forbidden the taking of oysters from beds within its territory 
by means of a scoop and had provided that vessels engaged in 
doing so should be forfeited if captured. The law was enforced 
against a Philadelphia sloop, which had a license from the United 
States as a coasting and fishing vessel. The control of the State 
over its own fishing grounds was held to be ample to sustain such 
legislation. 
In this term came to an end the famous ° Wheeling Bridge case, 
in a holding that Congress had authority to legislate as to bridges 
over navigable streams so far as they affected the navigation of the 
streams. The final authorization of the bridge by Congress was 
upheld. 
Into the bitter waters of the controversy over the Dred Scott 
1 P. 435, Pomeroy’s ed. 471 Pet, 420. 
27 Cow., 348. 518 How., 77. 
375 Vt, 745. 6 2 7d., 421, 
