## Facts

- Pennsylvania required vessels entering or leaving the Port of Philadelphia to either take a licensed local pilot or, if they declined, pay one-half the regular pilotage fee to port officials for the benefit of a pilots’ relief society.
- Aaron B. Cooley, a consignee/owner of vessels using the port, refused to employ a local pilot for certain departures and refused to pay the resulting half-pilotage charge.
- The Board of Wardens sought to collect the half-pilotage amounts under the Pennsylvania statute.
- The Pennsylvania law included an exemption for certain American vessels engaged in the Pennsylvania coal trade.
- State courts upheld the statute and imposed liability for the half-pilotage charge; Cooley sought review, arguing the law violated the U.S. Constitution.

## Issues

1. Whether a state pilotage law requiring vessels to take a pilot or pay half pilotage is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause because regulation of navigation is committed to Congress.
2. Whether the half-pilotage charge is an unconstitutional impost, duty, or tonnage-type charge prohibited to states, or an impermissible preference among ports.
3. Whether the federal commerce power is inherently exclusive over pilotage even when Congress has not displaced state regulation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the state judgment and upheld the Pennsylvania pilotage statute.
- The Court held that pilotage is a regulation of navigation and thus falls within the subject matter of “commerce,” but the grant of the commerce power to Congress does not itself eliminate all state authority over that subject.
- The Court concluded pilotage is a matter that often requires local variation, so state regulation is permissible absent conflicting federal law.
- The Court rejected the claim that half pilotage was an impost or duty on imports, exports, or tonnage, treating pilotage fees as historically distinct from those prohibited charges.
- The Court found no unconstitutional port preference or prohibited duty arising from the Pennsylvania scheme, including the challenged exemption.
- The Court relied in part on early federal legislation recognizing continued operation of state pilotage laws as evidence that Congress treated pilotage as an appropriate subject for state regulation unless Congress chose otherwise.

## Legal Principles

- The Commerce Clause includes navigation; laws regulating pilotage regulate commerce within Congress’s enumerated power.
- Not every subject within “commerce” is exclusively federal by virtue of the constitutional grant alone; exclusivity turns on the nature of the subject.
- When a subject of commerce calls for a single, uniform national rule, it is committed to federal control; when it is local in character and suited to diverse rules reflecting port conditions, states may regulate unless Congress preempts or a direct conflict exists.
- Pilotage is a classic local subject because safe navigation conditions vary by port; state pilot requirements and related fees can be valid commerce regulations.
- Pilotage fees, including charges imposed when a vessel declines a pilot, are not treated as “imposts” or “duties” on imports/exports or tonnage within the constitutional prohibitions when they function as part of a pilotage regulatory scheme.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained Pennsylvania’s requirement that vessels entering or leaving Philadelphia take a local pilot or pay half pilotage, holding that although pilotage concerns commerce, it is a local subject that states may regulate absent conflicting federal law; the fee was not a prohibited impost or port preference.


Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia, 53 U.S. 299 (1852)