ble streams extended to the State of Illinois, notwithstanding that the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest Territory, contained a clause declaring that "the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between them, shall be common highways and forever free." The power to span these rivers by bridges. was put, partly upon the theory that the limitations upon the power of the State whilst in a territorial condition ceased to have any operative force except as voluntarily adopted by her after she became a State of the Union, and partly upon the theory, as said Mr. Justice Field, page 689, that "all highways, whether by land or water, are subject to such crossings as the public necessities and convenience may require, and their character as such is not changed, if the crossings are allowed under reasonable conditions, and not so as to needlessly obstruct the use of the highways."

So also in Cardwell v. Bridge Co., 113 U. S. 205, a provision in the act admitting California, that "all the navigable waters within the said State shall be common highways and forever free," was held not to deprive the State of the power possessed by it to authorize the erection of bridges over navigable waters. Said the court, page 211, "the clause, therefore, in the act admitting California, quoted above, upon which the complainant relies, must be considered, according to these decisions, as in no way impairing the power which the State could exercise over the subject if the clause had no existence." To the same effect, Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1; Hamilton v. Vicksburg &c. R. R. Co., 119 U. S. 280, 284.

In Lake Shore &c. R. R. Co. v. Ohio, 165 U. S. 365, it was held that the act of September 19, 1890, conferring upon the Secretary of War the authority to direct the alteration of such bridges so as to render navigation easy and unobstructed, did not deprive the States of authority to bridge such streams.

While all of these cases turned upon the power of the State to authorize the erection of bridges, the same principle applies where the legislature deems it necessary to the public welfare

to make other improvements for the reclamation of swampy and overflowed lands, though certain individual proprietors may thereby be subjected to expense. The question whether Kinloch Creek could be obstructed without the permission of the Secretary of War does not arise in this case, and is specially disclaimed by the plaintiff. See Lake Shore &c. Railroad Co. v. Ohio, 165 U. S. 365; Leovy v. United States, 177 U. S. 621, 633; Cummings v. Chicago, 188 U. S. 410; Montgomery v. Portland, 190 U. S. 89.

The main argument was addressed to the question whether the contract of August, 1898, providing for the removal of the obstruction on December 31 and the free ingress and egress through the creek thereafter, was impaired by the act of the General Assembly of 1903, permitting the defendants by name. to construct and maintain the dam in question.

It is the settled law of this court that the interdiction of statutes impairing the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising such powers as are vested in it for the promotion of the common weal, or are necessary for the general good of the public, though contracts previously entered into between individuals may thereby be affected. This power, which in its various ramifications is known as the police power, is an exercise of the sovereign right of the Government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people, and is paramount to any rights under contracts between individuals. Familiar instances of this are, where parties enter into contracts, perfectly lawful at the time, to sell liquor, operate a brewery or distillery, or carry on a lottery, all of which are subject to impairment by a change of policy on the part of the State, prohibiting the establishment or continuance of such traffic;-in other words, that parties by entering into contracts may not estop the legislature from enacting laws intended for the public good.

While this power is subject to limitations in certain cases, there is wide discretion on the part of the legislature in determining what is and what is not necessary-a discretion which

courts ordinarily will not interfere with. The leading case upon this point is that of Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420, in which a franchise to maintain a ferry between Cambridge and Boston, under which a bridge was subsequently erected, was held to be subject to the power of the legislature to establish a parallel bridge between the same points. In Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, a charter to a lottery company for twenty-five years was held to be subject to the power of the State to abolish lotteries altogether. Similar cases announcing the same principle are Boyd v. Alabama, 94 U. S. 645; Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, 672; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 665; Chicago &c. R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226.

It only remains to consider, in connection with this branch of the case, whether the act of the General Assembly of 1903 was a proper exercise of the police power of the State. Of this we have no doubt. Although it was not an exercise of that power in its ordinarily accepted sense of protecting the health, lives and morals of the community, it is defensible in its broader meaning of providing for the general welfare of the people, by the reclamation of swampy, overflowed and infertile lands, and the erection of dams, levees and dikes for that purpose. We have often held that private interests are subservient to that right, except where property is taken for which compensation must be paid, and must give way to any general scheme for the reclamation or improvement of such lands.

Indeed, this seems to have been within the contemplation of Congress in its act of September 28, 1850, 9 Stat. 519, to enable the States to reclaim the swamp lands within their limits, the first section of which enacts that "To enable the State of Arkansas to construct the necessary levees and drains to reclaim the swamps and overflowed lands therein, the whole of those swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation shall be, and the same are hereby, granted

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to said State." Section 4 extends this provision to the other States. Although the act has no direct bearing on this case, it recognizes an intent on the part of Congress to allow the States to regulate the disposal of overflowed lands, as the legislature shall deem best for the public interests. That the act of the General Assembly in question was passed upon this theory is indicated by its recitals, that "by reason of the drainage and protection of said lands from overflow, their taxable value will be greatly enhanced, and without the dam provided for in this bill a large part of the land bordering on said creek will eventually become abandoned and valueless, as some portions of it now are," and that this "is the only feasible and practicable scheme for the drainage of said lands." This was the reason given for the passage of the act of the General Assembly of Delaware in the Black Bird Creek case, already cited. Chief Justice Marshall observed (p. 251): "The value of the property on its banks must be enhanced by excluding the water from the marsh, and the health of the inhabitants probably improved. Measures calculated to produce these objects, provided they do not come into collision. with the powers of the General Government, are undoubtedly within those which are reserved to the States." Several subsequent decisions have confirmed the power of the State to deal, in the absence of Congressional legislation, with their rivers, for the purposes of their internal improvement, such as Withers v. Buckley, 20 How. 84, wherein the right of Mississippi to change the channels or courses of rivers within the State for the purpose of improvement was sustained, and Atkinson v. Philadelphia &c. R. R. Co., 2 Fed. Cases, 105, Case 615, a decision by Mr. Justice Baldwin of this court.

The whole subject was recently discussed in the case of Leory v. United States, 177 U. S. 621, wherein was vindicated the right of the State of Louisiana to authorize the construction and maintenance of levees, drains and other structures necessary and suitable to reclaim swamp and overflowed lands, although there was evidence that the stream there concerned

(Red Pass) was useful for some minor purposes of interstate commerce. There was testimony that luggers or yawls chiefly used by fishermen to carry oysters to and from their beds sometimes went through this pass, but it was not shown that passengers ever went through it, or that freight destined for any other State was ever carried through it.

In delivering an exhaustive opinion in this case, Mr. Justice Shiras observed (p. 636): "We think that the trial court might well take judicial notice that the public health is deeply concerned in the reclamation of swamp and overflowed lands. If there is any fact which may be supposed to be known by everybody, and, therefore, by courts, it is that swamps and stagnant waters are the cause of malarial and malignant fevers, and that the police power is never more legitimately exercised than in removing such nuisances."

While, as already observed, there is a general allegation in the bill that Kinloch Creek was a navigable stream, and was capable of navigation by vessels in the Santee River and thence into the ocean, there is no allegation that it was ever used for that purpose, and the opinion of the court was that it certainly was not a navigable water of the United States, or a public highway under the laws of South Carolina. But, however this may be, we are of opinion that the State had full power, in the absence of legislation by Congress, to authorize the construction of this dam for the avowed purposes of this act.

2. The second assignment of error, that the plaintiff was deprived of his property without compensation, and hence without due process of law, is also unsound.

The only allegation of the bill in that connection is that the construction of the dam was not only a destruction of plaintiff's right of navigation and of his access to his lands through Kinloch Creek, but has caused the water to fall back to some extent on the plantation on Minim Creek, just opposite the mouth of Kinloch, so as to compel the plaintiff to raise his dikes. We do not think the overflow to the minor extent indicated constitutes a taking of property within the meaning of