rshall has said, (9 Wheat., 192,) "a want of acuteness in
discovering objections to a measure to which they felt the most
deep-rooted hostility will not be imputed to those who were arrayed in
opposition to this," I am not aware that the fact that it prohibited
the use of a particular species of property, belonging almost
exclusively to citizens of a few States, and this indefinitely, was
ever supposed to show that it was unconstitutional. Something much
more stringent, as a ground of legal judgment, was relied on--that the
power to regulate commerce did not include the power to annihilate
commerce.

But the decision was, that under the power to regulate commerce, the
power of Congress over the subject was restricted only by those
exceptions and limitations contained in the Constitution; and as
neither the clause in question, which was a general grant of power to
regulate commerce, nor any other clause of the Constitution, imposed
any restrictions as to the duration of an embargo, an unlimited
prohibition of the use of the shipping of the country was within the
power of Congress. On this subject, Mr. Justice Daniel, speaking for
the court in the case of United States _v._ Marigold, (9 How., 560,)
says: "Congress are, by the Constitution, vested with the power to
regulate commerce with foreign nations; and however, at periods of
high excitement, an application of the terms 'to regulate commerce,'
such as would embrace absolute prohibition, may have been questioned,
yet, since the passage of the embargo and non-intercourse laws, and
the repeated judicial sanctions these statutes have received, it can
scarcely at this day be open to doubt, that every subject falling
legitimately within the sphere of commercial regulation may be
partially or wholly excluded, when either measure shall be demanded by
the safety or the important interests of the entire nation. The power
once conceded, it may operate on any and every subject of commerce to
which the legislative discretion may apply it."

If power to regulate commerce extends to an indefinite prohibition of
the use of all vessels belonging to citizens of the several States,
and may operate, without exception, upon every subject of commerce to
which the legislative discretion may apply it, upon what grounds can I
say that power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting
the territory of the United States is subject to an exception of the
allowance or prohibition of sl