Significance: This ruling was the first case to deal with the clause that allows Congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. This case was important because it made clear the distribution of powers between the nation and the states.
Background: In 1807 inventor Robert Fulton acquired a monopoly on steam travel in New York State’s waters. Steamboat operators who wanted to travel on New York waters had to obtain a state-issued Fulton-Livingston license. Thomas Gibbons, an operator who had a federal coasting license, competed with state-licensed Aaron Ogden for steam travel between New Jersey and Manhattan. Although the New York courts had always upheld the Fulton monopoly, Gibbons challenged it on appeal to the Supreme Court.
Decision: This case was argued on February 4­9, 1824, and decided on March 2, 1824, by a vote of 6 to 0. Chief Justice John Marshall spoke for the Court, with Justice William Johnson concurring. The Court ruled in favor of Gibbons, stating that the congressional statute (Gibbon’s federal license) took priority over the state statute (Ogden’s state-monopoly license). The ruling also defined commerce broadly to include people and new inventions, such as the steamboat.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “We do not find, in the history of the formation and adoption of the constitution, that any man speaks of a general concurrent power, in the regulation of foreign and domestic trade, as still residing in the States. The very object intended, more than any other, was to take away such power. If it had not so provided, the constitution would not have been worth accepting.”
