12); also
Kent's "Commentaries", I, 432-38.

Marshall pronounced the Fulton-Livingston monopoly inoperative so far as
it concerned vessels enrolled under the Act of Congress to engage in the
coasting trade; but in arriving at this very simple result his opinion
takes the broadest possible range. At the very outset Marshall
flatly contradicts Kent's proposition that the powers of the General
Government, as representing a grant by sovereignties, must be strictly
construed. The Constitution, says he, "contains an enumeration of powers
expressly granted by the people to their government," and there is not
a word in it which lends any countenance to the idea that these powers
should be strictly interpreted. As men whose intentions required no
concealment, those who framed and adopted the Constitution "must be
understood to have employed words in their natural sense and to have
intended what they said"; but if, from the inherent imperfection of
language, doubts were at any time to arise "respecting the extent of any
given power," then the known purposes of the instrument should control
the construction put on its phraseology. "The grant does not convey
power which might be beneficial to the grantor if retained by
himself... but is an investment of power for the general advantage in
the hands of agents selected for the purpose, which power can never be
exercised by the people themselves, but must be placed in the hands of
agents or remain dormant." In no other of his opinions did Marshall
so clearly bring out the logical connection between the principle of
liberal construction of the Constitution and the doctrine that it is an
ordinance of the American people.

Turning then to the Constitution, Marshall asks, "What is commerce?"
"Counsel for appellee," he recites, "would limit it to traffic, to
buying and selling," to which he answers that "this would restrict a
general term... to one of its significations. Commerce," he continues,
"undoubtedly is traffic, but it is something more--it is intercourse,"
and so includes navigation. And what is the power of Congress over
commerce? "It is the power to regulate, that is, the power to prescribe
the rule by which commerce is to be governed." It is a power "complete
in itself," exercisable "at its utmost extent," and without limitations
"other than are prescribed by the Constitution.... If, as has always
been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to
specified obje