assumption of power, on the part of the federal congress, they prefer to base their authority for it on the power to regulate commerce among the several states, to establish post-roads, and to raise and support armies. But it has been decided that the constitutional power to establish post-roads is confined to such as are regularly laid out under state authority; the government of the United States cannot construct a post-road within a state of the Union without its consent. The post-roads of the United States are the property of the states through which they pass. The United States have the mere right of transit over them for the purpose of carrying the mails; the government could not have an injunction to prevent the destruction of a mail-road." Citing the case of the Cleveland, Painesville, & Ashtabula railroad company _vs_. The Franklin canal company, in the circuit court of the United States, the editor adds: "Congress certainly can confer no rights on a railroad company incorporated by a state government, which are withheld from it by the charter of its creator." The above quoted act assumes that congress has full power to regulate the connection of railroads in the different states, as well as the carrying trade upon the same. It strips the several state governments of all power to interfere, and in case of any controversy takes from the state courts the power to determine the rights of the respective parties; the act of congress could be pleaded, and, as a necessary consequence, the United States courts would have exclusive jurisdiction. It cannot be claimed that this act can be supported under any express delegation of power to the general government, nor can it be supported as being incidental to any express grant. It is an usurpation not warranted or sustained by any part of the constitution. This one section quoted, destroys the right of any state of the Union, or of two or more of them, to legislate upon the subject of uniting or connecting railroads meeting on the lines dividing them, and also takes from the states the right to regulate the carrying trade within their own respective borders. Congress had no more authority under the constitution to enact this law, than to provide by statute for the construction of public highways when they meet upon the line dividing states, or to provide for the passage of teams from one state to another, and the transportation of freights over the common highways within or across a state. The whole power under the constitution is reserved to the states. Prior to the creation of these great railroad monopolies by congress, an attempt at such legislation would have been deemed unconstitutional, but as soon as the whole affairs of government passed into the hands of the few, and when the protection of their interests demanded it, the act was passed, and has remained upon the statute book as one of the laws of the land. This act is about the only