Is the authority to charter private corporations necessarily included in the delegated power to regulate commerce among the several states, or to establish post roads? We think not. What do we understand by the word "Commerce?" Webster defines it as follows: "1st. _In a general sense_, an interchange or mutual change of goods, wares, productions, or property of any kind between nations or individuals, either by barter, or by purchase and sale; trade; traffic. Commerce is _foreign, or inland_. Foreign commerce is the trade which one nation carries on with another; inland commerce, or inland trade, is the trade in the exchange of commodities between citizens of the same nation or state. 2d. Intercourse between individuals; interchange of work, business, civilities, or amusements; mutual dealings in life." And again: "To traffic; to carry on trade." In the absence of any definition given to it in the constitution, we must accept the above general definition of its meaning as being the sense in which it is used in the constitution. Respecting trade with foreign nations or the Indian tribes, it can only relate to the interchange of commodities, or purchase or sale of articles of traffic. As incidental to this power, congress can prescribe rules for the regulation of navigation upon the high seas, including police regulations on board of vessels, because the oceans are the common or public highways of all nations, and each nation navigating the same is bound to protect not only its commerce, but its citizens or subjects. Nations hold commerce with nations across and upon the high seas, the citizens and subjects of each being protected by their own government. This commerce with foreign nations is not regulated by grants of private charters, but by acts of congress is open to all alike, save where, for the encouragement of certain branches of trade, certain bounties or privileges have been granted to particular parties for a specified time. But all such grants have been to parties navigating the high seas. The control of navigable streams within the United States does not depend alone upon the powers given to congress to regulate the commerce of the country, but depends also upon the further power vesting in the general government exclusive maritime jurisdiction. If we concede that the power to regulate commerce among the several states gives congress the exclusive right to regulate the commerce carried on upon our rivers, it would not follow that the power to charter railway companies is conferred. Navigable streams are _public highways_, open to the travel of all. No man, set of men, or corporations, can claim the exclusive right to navigate these rivers, nor could congress grant such exclusive right. The duty of protecting the rights of the citizen, and of making river transportation safe, and of protecting the rights of property, demand that the national, and not the state legislature, should be supreme in this particular