As to matters under the exclusive power or congress, national in their character and re quiring general and not local rules of regu lation, the fact that congress has not lated does not make it lawful for the states to do • so. Such inaction shows only that no restrictions are to be put upon commerce in that direction. The right to legislate is exclusively vested in congress; and when congress legislates on a subject within its ex clusive power a state loses control of any right it may have had to apply the police power to it, even though the federal act is not to take effect until a future period; Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 370, 32 Sup. Ct. 160, 56 L. Ed. 237.
The course of decisions, mainly in the United States Supreme Court, covers a great variety of subjects with which the state legislatures have attempted to deal in the enactment of statutes which have been held unconstitutional because they interfered with the exclusive power of congress conferred by the commerce clause of the constitution. Among the statutes which have thus fallen under the ban of the final authority on the subject is one imposing a burdensome condition upon a shipmaster as a prerequis ite for landing his passengers, with the al ternative of the payment of a small sum for each of them; Henderson v. New York, 92 U. S. 259, 23 L. Ed. 543 ; one regulat ing the arrival of passengers from a for eign port and authorizing an executive of ficer to include passengers of certain class es at his discretion ; Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 275, 23 L. Ed. 550; which the court considered as having been enacted mainly to exclude Chinese immigration, and to go far beyond the legitimate state action of ex cluding pauper or convict immigrants. See also In re Ah Fong, 3 Savvy. 144, Fed. Cas. No. 102. But a statute is not invalid where the detention is for the purpose of disin fection by the order of a state board of health ; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. (U. S.) 419, 6 L. Ed. 678 ; Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. R. Co. v. Milner, 57 Fed. 276. So statutes are unconstitutional which require the payment of a license tax by commercial travellers selling goods manufactured in oth er states, but not by those selling goods manufactured in the state itself; Brennan v. Titusville, 153 U. S. 289, 14 Sup. Ct. 829, 38 L. Ed. 719; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344, 26 L. Ed. 565; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275, 23 L. Ed. 347; Asher v. Texas, 128 U. S. 129, 9 Sup. Ct. 1, 32 L. Ed. 368; Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U. S. 489, 7 Sup. Ct. 592, 30 L. Ed. 694; McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104, 10 Sup. Ct. 881, 34 L. Ed. 391; Mc Clellan v. Pettigrew, 44 La. Ann. 356, 10 South. 853; Overton v. City of Vicksburg, 70 Miss. 558, 13 South. 226 ; Hurford v. State,
91 Tenn. 669, 20 S. W. 201 (but not when the same tax is levied upon peddlers selling goods .made in or out of the state; Howe Mach. Co. v. Gage, 100 U. S. 676, 25 L. Ed. 754; or which were part of the mass of property in the state; Emert v. Missouri, 156 U. S. 296, 15 Sup. Ct. 367, 39 L. Ed. 430 ; and see Tiernan v. Rinker, 102 U. S. 123, 26 L. Ed. 103); so of an act requiring importers of foreign goods to take out a license in the exercise of a power of taxation; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. (U. S.) 419, 6 L. Ed. 678; and a state law which requires a party to take out a license for carrying on inter state commerce; Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, 11 Sup. Ct. 851, 35 L. Ed. 649; a city ordinance laying wharf fees upon ves sels laden with products of other states, which are not exacted from vessels laden with products of the home state; Guy v. Baltimore, 100 U. S. 434, 25 L. Ed. 743 ; a state tonnage tax on foreign vessels; Cannon v. New Orleans, 20 Wall. (U. S.) 577, 22 L. Ed. 417; levied to defray quarantine expens es; Peete v. Morgan, 19 Wall. (U. S.) 581, 22 L. Ed. 201; otherwise of a tax for city purposes levied upon a vessel owned by a resident of the city which is not imposed for the privilege of trading ; Wheeling, P. & C. Transp. Co. v. Wheeling, 99 U. S. 273, 25 L. Ed. 412; The North Cape, 6 Biss. 505, Fed. Cas. No. 10,316; granting a telegraph com pany exclusive right to maintain telegraph lines in such state as contrary to the Act of July 24, 1866, which practically forbids the state to exclude from its borders a telegraph company building its lines in pursuance of this act of congress; Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Telegraph Co., 96 U. S. 1, 24 L. Ed. 708; an attempt to regulate transmission of telegraphic messages into other states and their delivery; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Pendleton, 122 U. S. 347, 7 Sup. Ct. 1126, 30 L. Ed. 1187; as telegraphic com munications carried on between different states are interstate commerce ; Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 8 Sup. Ct. 1383, 32 L. Ed. 311; a statute providing for inspection of sea-going vessels arriving at a port and of damaged goods found thereon by a state officer, with a view to furnishing of ficial evidence to the parties immediately concerned, and when goods are damaged to provide for their sale ; Foster v. Master & Wardens of New Orleans, 94 U. 5, 246, 24 L. Ed. 122; and one prohibiting the driving of cattle from another state into the state during certain months ; Hannibal & St. J. R. Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 24 L. Ed. 527; one regulating the rates on interstate traf fic; Wabash, St. L. & P. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, 7 Sup. Ct. 4, 30 L. Ed. 244.