a similar precaution can not be observed in regard to the ports of
Georgetown and Beaufort, each of which under the present laws remains a
port of entry and exposed to the obstructions meditated in that quarter.

In considering the best means of avoiding or of preventing the
apprehended obstruction to the collection of the revenue, and the
consequences which may ensue, it would appear to be proper and necessary
to enable the officers of the customs to preserve the custody of vessels
and their cargoes, which by the existing laws they are required to take,
until the duties to which they are liable shall be paid or secured. The
mode by which it is contemplated to deprive them of that custody is the
process of replevin and that of _capias in withernam_, in the nature of
a distress from the State tribunals organized by the ordinance.

Against the proceeding in the nature of a distress it is not perceived
that the collector can interpose any resistance whatever, and against
the process of replevin authorized by the law of the State he, having no
common-law power, can only oppose such inspectors as he is by statute
authorized and may find it practicable to employ, and these, from the
information already adverted to, are shown to be wholly inadequate,

The respect which that process deserves must therefore be considered.

If the authorities of South Carolina had not obstructed the legitimate
action of the courts of the United States, or if they had permitted the
State tribunals to administer the law according to their oath under the
Constitution and the regulations of the laws of the Union, the General
Government might have been content to look to them for maintaining the
custody and to encounter the other inconveniences arising out of the
recent proceedings. Even in that case, however, the process of replevin
from the courts of the State would be irregular and unauthorized. It has
been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that the courts
of the United States have exclusive jurisdiction of all seizures made on
land or water for a breach of the laws of the United States, and any
intervention of a State authority which, by taking the thing seized out
of the hands of the United States officer, might obstruct the exercise
of this jurisdiction is unlawful; that in such case the court of the
United States having cognizance of the seizure may enforce a redelivery
of the thing by attachment or other summary process; that