Case ID: hill_1/html/0469-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court, Bronson, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The People vs. Jenkins.
    The act of April 15th, 1839, (Sess. 1839, p. 147, § 1,) regulating the speed of steamboats while passing, coming to, or going from the wharves of the city of Albany, is not repugnant to the constitution, or any law which congress has passed under ' its power “ to regulate commerce,” &c.
    Debt, to recover a penalty of $200, tried before Cushman, C. Judge, at the Albany circuit, in December, 1839. The act of April 15th, 1839, provides that no steamboat navigating the Hudson river, “shall proceed or be propelled with greater speed than at the rate of four miles an hour while passing the wharves of the city of Albany, or while coming to or departing therefrom.” (Stat. 1839, p. 147, § 1.) The second section gives a forfeiture for violating the above provision of $200, against the master or any person having the charge or command of the boat, to be sued for in the name' of the people, by the district attorney of the county. The Hudson, at Albany, is a navigable river, in which the tide ebbs and flows. Albany is a port of entry, and the office of the deputy collector is higher up the river than the point at which the boat was, at the time she was passing the wharves at a greater speed than that mentioned in the statute. The defendant was the master of the boat at the time. The judge decided that the act was constitutional, and the jury found a verdict for the people.
    
      M. T. Reynolds,
    
    for the defendant, insisted that the statute was unconstitutional. He cited Corfield v. Coryell, (4 Wash. C. C. R. 371;) Gibbons v. Ogden, (9 Wheat, l;) Brown v. State of Maryland, (12 id. 419;) Steamboat Co. v. Livingston, (3 Cowen, 713;) Wilson v. Blackbird Creek Co. (2 Peters, 245.)
    
      R. W. Peckham,
    
    (district attorney,) for the people, also cited the case in 2 Peters, 245; and added, City of N. 
      Y. v. Miln, (11 Peters, 102;) The People v. The Rensselaer & Saratoga R. R. Co. (15 Wendell, 113.)
   By the Court, Bronson, J.

I can see nothing in the cases referred to by the defendant’s counsel tending to show, that the statute in question is repugnant either to the constitution ,of the United States, or to any law which congress has passed under its power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and the cases mentioned by the district attorney abundantly establish the validity of the enactment. Steamboats, when passing the wharves of the city, cannot continue their usually rapid movement without endangering the lives and the property of individuals. This police regulation was made to guard against such consequences; and it neither injures the navigation of the river, nor conflicts with any regulation of commerce by the general government.

New trial denied.