There is the power “to regulate commerce among the several States.” Look at the Constitution and you find these identical words.

From the great sensitiveness of States, this power is always exercised by Congress with peculiar caution; but it still lives to be employed by an enfranchised Government.

Asserting this power, I follow not only the text of the Constitution, but also authoritative decisions of the Supreme Court.

But in regulating commerce with foreign nations, the power of Congress does not stop at the jurisdictional lines of the several States.

If Congress has the power to regulate it, that power must be exercised whenever the subject exists.

Therefore I conclude that the power of Congress over internal commerce by railroad is identical with that over internal commerce by water.

It does not stop at the mere boundary-line of a State; nor is it confined to acts done on the water, or in the necessary course of the navigation thereof.

But this is the very thing now done by New Jersey, which “exacts a duty” from passengers across the State.

I call attention also to the case of the Wheeling Bridge, where Congress, under peculiar circumstances, exercised this identical power.

Such are precedents of courts and of statutes, showing how completely this power belongs to Congress in the regulation of internal commerce.

There they stand like so many granite columns, fit supports of that internal commerce, in itself a chief support of the Union.

Then comes the power “to raise and support armies,”--an unquestionable power lodged in Congress.

It would be absurd to suppose that Congress was empowered to raise an army, but could not authorize the agencies required for its transportation from place to place.

Such is the argument in brief for the constitutionality of the present bill, whether regarded as a general measure applicable to all railroads, or only applicable to the railroads of New Jersey.

The present bill does not touch the internal commerce of a State, except so far as it is a link in the chain of “commerce among States,” committed by the Constitution to the jurisdiction of Congress.

Exclusive jurisdiction over a road is one thing; the right to make it is quite another.

The clear import of the word is to create, and form, and fix in a settled manner.… To establish post-offices and post-roads is to frame and pass laws to erect, make, form, regulate, and preserve them.

It is enough, if I call attention to the precise text of the Constitution, which is, “No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.

Look at these words, and it appears, in the first place, that this inhibition is addressed to the States, and not to Congress, whose powers are not touched by it.

Look still further at the railroad charters, and, even admitting that they were grants in the nature of contract, you cannot deny that the contract must be interpreted with reference to the Constitution of the United States.

Learned judges have held that the law of the place where a contract is made not only regulates and governs it, but constitutes part of the contract itself.

But if the law constitutes part of the contract, still more must the Constitution.

Every railroad charter has been framed subject to the exercise of the acknowledged powers of Congress, all of which are implied in the grant as essential conditions, not less than if set forth expressly.

Therefore, I repeat, nothing is proposed “impairing the obligation of contracts,” even if that well-known inhibition were applicable to Congress.

Here is a measure, founded, as I have already demonstrated, on three different texts of the Constitution, upheld by three unassailable supports, and also in essential harmony with the Union itself; and yet we are told that it destroys the…