Two years after the License Cases, the court was again called upon, in the so-called Passenger Cases,50 to consider the regulative powers of the States with reference to foreign and interstate commerce. Here there was a departure from the doctrine of New York v. Miln, a law of New York being held void which authorized the state health commissioners to collect certain fees from captains of ships arriving at the .ports of the State; and a law of Massachusetts annulled which required captains of ships to give certain bonds as to immigrants landed, and which provided for the payment of a small sum by each immigrant.

In these Passenger Cases, as in the License Cases, no opinion representing that of a majority of the court was rendered, the justices preparing individual arguments in support of their several positions. Justice McLean asserted emphatically the exclusive-ness of the federal jurisdiction. Justice Wayne agreed as to this, but said that it was not necessary to argue it in the cases at bar. The three other justices, concurring in the judgment that the laws in question were in violation of existing federal laws and treaties, did not commit themselves upon the question of the exclusiveness of the federal power. Chief Justice Taney in a dissenting opinion argued that the state laws were valid as a proper exercise of the States' police power. Justice Woodbury, also dissenting, reaffirmed the doctrine declared by him in the License Cases, and held the laws valid as local in nature and operation.