Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, the object of this resolution commends itself to the senate, provided it can be accomplished. We all have an interest, in common with the whole country, in keeping the cholera out of the U.S. if we can; if we have the power by legislation to accomplish that purpose, it is our duty to exert it; but I am unable to agree with the honorable member from Massachusetts, that there is any such power under the authority with which Congress is clothed of regulating commerce with foreign nations and between the States. The other grounds on which it is supposed the resolution can be maintained, as ar as the authority of the honorable member from Massachusetts is concerned, I understand to be abandoned. It is not to be maintained upon the war power, because there is no war, actual or anticipated, and before any authority can be exerted under the war power with which Congress is clothed, there must be a state of war. During the late rebellion we gave as broad an interpretation to that power, and perhaps broader than the framers of the Constitution designed; but it is immaterial now to inquire whether in the past during a war, or whether in the future if there should be a war, we can go to the extent We have done, or whetherin going to that extent We were justified or not, looking strictlyto the true interpretation of the Constitution in that particular. I think all will agree that there must be a war before the power that grows out of a state of war can be exerted; and as no body pretends that there is a condition of war now, or as far as we know that any war is anticipated, either with a foreign nation or among ourselves, the resolution upon the table cannot be justified upon that ground. Nor does it profess, even if it could have been justified upon that ground, to be the exertion of the war power. It is intended to avoid disease, and nothing else. It is a sani tary reulation. It is a regulation to be accomplishe by means of quarantine, or by quasi means of the same description. My friendfrom Massachusetts supposes and the honor able member from Vermont yesterday, in proposing his amendment. put it upon that ground y that the measure can be maintained under the authority which Congress has to reulate commerce with foreign nations. My friendfrom Vermont will permit me to say that he misapprehends I speak it with all respect the principle upon which the passenger cases were decided. At that time the Supreme Court a majority of the judges following what they supposed to be the rule established in the case of ribbons vs. Ogden, in 9 Wheaton were of the opinion that the authority conferred upon Congress to regulate commerce between the U.S and foreign nations was exclusive, so that over that subject the States had no control whatever, and upon reasoning very lansible, and not only plausible, but very orcible, as stated in the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, who gave the unanimous opinion of the court in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. But in the subsequent cases, in the passenger cases, and afterward more decidedly in what were called the license cases, a majority of the court came to the conclusion that the gower was not an exclusive one, and that the States had a right to pass laws the effect of which was to regulate commerce in all cases in which such laws would not, in that particular, conflict with any existing laws which Congress might have passed. In other words, the court held that the power was, in one sense, a concurrentpower; thatifthe U.S. thought proper to exercise their authority, about which there could be no doubt, but did not make an entire regulation, that which was not regulated fell within the scope of the power of the State. It is due to my own opinion and due to can dor to say that I think the latter opinions of the Supreme Court in that particular were erroneous. My belief at the time was, and my belief now is, that the power was designed to be exclusive; and that, therefore, if Congress should fail to regulate entirely commerce between the U.S and a foreign nation, Congress would have declared, by the failure to regulate, that what was being done with commerce as between the U.S and foreign nations and the several States, was just in the condition in which Congress desired it to remain. In other words, the power of regulating commerce with which Congress is clothed is a power exerted in a case of that description by not regulating. The subject itself seems to be and speak now upon the authority of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall one which necessarily must be intrusted to one power, to one government; and if so, as nobody can doubt that the power is given to Congress by the Constitution, that power, in my opinion, is exclusive of like authority on the part of the States. But the received doctrine of the Supreme Court now is otherwise.