Gibbons v Ogden

Gibbons v. Ogden case decided in 1824 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Aaron Ogden, the plaintiff, had purchased an interest in the monopoly to operate steamboats that New York state had granted to Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston. Ogden brought suit in New York against Thomas Gibbons, the defendant, for operating a rival steamboat service between New York City and the New Jersey ports. Gibbons lost his case and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision. At issue was the scope of the commerce clause of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution; this provides that Congress shall have the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Chief Justice John Marshall held that the New York monopoly was an unconstitutional interference with the power of Congress over interstate commerce. He condemned the view that the states and the federal government are equal sovereignties. Federal power is specifically enumerated, but within its sphere Congress is supreme. State legislation may be enacted in areas reserved to the federal government only if concurrent jurisdiction is feasible (as in the case of taxation). The decision was highly influential in its explication of the federal structure of the United States.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824).In 1798, New York state gave Robert Livingston an exclusive fourteen‐year franchise to operate a steamboat “within the state.” In 1808, the legislature extended this monopoly, now shared with Robert Fulton, until 1838. Chief Justice James Kent, speaking for New York's highest court in 1812, approved the monopoly. In 1815, Livingston and Fulton sold part of their franchise rights to Aaron Ogden of New Jersey, who began operating a steamboat between New Jersey and New York City. In 1819, Ogden's former partner Thomas Gibbons began operating his own boat between New Jersey and New York. Ogden sued Gibbons, and in 1820 the New York court again upheld the steamboat monopoly. Gibbons appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided the case in 1824. Daniel Webster, representing Gibbons, argued that his client had the right under federal law to “navigate freely” in all of the waters of the United States.

In one of his most important opinions, Chief Justice John Marshall struck down the monopoly as it applied to interstate commerce. The authority the Constitution granted the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, Marshall asserted, was a linchpin of the national government's power. Commerce, he declared, “is traffic, but it is something more; it is the commercial intercourse between nations and parts of nations, in all its branches.” The Constitution, Marshall ruled, vested in Congress alone the complete power to regulate all commerce “among the states.” The states could regulate “completely internal commerce,” Marshall conceded, but all commerce that began in one state and entered into a second state fell exclusively within the federal government's regulatory power. In striking down an unpopular monopoly, Marshall also skillfully interpreted the Constitution's commerce clause to expand the power of the federal government. His decision was widely applauded by nationalists and states’‐rights advocates alike.
See also Capitalism; Early Republic, Era of the; Economic Regulation; Federalism.

Bibliography

M.G. Baxter , The Steamboat Monopoly: Gibbons v. Ogden, 1972.
G. Edward White , The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815–35, 1988.

Paul Finkelman