The federal authority over interstate commerce is not in terms made exclusive, and the courts have at times varied their views as to the extent to which an exclusiveness is to be deemed implied. From the beginning the States acted upon the assumption that they were not deprived of power to grant to persons and corporations exclusive privileges with reference to the carrying on upon land of commerce between themselves and other States; and this practice was acquiesced in by the Federal Government. As to the carrying on of interstate commerce by water, however, it seems to have been more generally held that the federal jurisdiction was exclusive. This, however, was not judicially determined until the decision of the great case of Gibbons v. Ogden.42

39 Cf. Prentice and Egan, p. 70.

40 102 U. S. 691; 26 L. ed. 238.

41 114 U. S. 196; 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 826; 29 L. ed. 158.