Such acts have been passed by
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and have been sanctioned by the
consent of Congress. Without enumerating them all, it may be instructive
to refer to some of them, as illustrative of the mode of improving
harbors and rivers in the early periods of our Government, as to the
constitutionality of which there can be no doubt.
In January, 1790, the State of Rhode Island passed a law levying a
tonnage duty on vessels arriving in the port of Providence, "for the
purpose of clearing and deepening the channel of Providence River and
making the same more navigable."
On the 2d of February, 1798, the State of Massachusetts passed a law
levying a tonnage duty on all vessels, whether employed in the foreign
or coasting trade, which might enter into the Kennebunk River, for the
improvement of the same by "rendering the passage in and out of said
river less difficult and dangerous."
On the 1st of April, 1805, the State of Pennsylvania passed a law
levying a tonnage duty on vessels, "to remove the obstructions to the
navigation of the river Delaware below the city of Philadelphia.
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