License Cases Thurlow v. Massachusetts; Fletcher v. Rhode Island; Peirce v. New Hampshire, 5 How. (46 U.S.) 504 (1847), argued 12, 14, 15, 20, 21 Jan. 1847, decided 6 Mar. 1847 by vote of 9 to 0; Taney, McLean, Catron, Daniel, Woodbury, and Grier delivered separate opinions. Establishing effective national authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce was a primary reason for creating the Constitution of 1787. The Marshall Court asserted a broad national authority to regulate interstate commerce, though that power was limited by an extensive state police power. Local business interests secured state legislation protecting their enterprises at the expense of merchants residing in other states. Meanwhile, after 1830 the antislavery movement made the states' control of slavery the most explosive issue of the antebellum era.

The License Cases involved the legality of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire statutes that taxed and otherwise regulated the sale of alcoholic beverages imported into those states. The statutes favored local retailers. The issue was whether the laws violated federal control of interstate commerce, or represented a lawful exercise of the state police power. The Court was unanimous in upholding the states' authority. Nine separate opinions written by six different justices revealed, however, that the slavery issue (raised by counsel in the Rhode Island case) prevented agreement on the reasons governing the result.

The decision shaped the Taney Court's formulation of a compromise policy known as the doctrine of selective exclusiveness, which influenced the application of the commerce power until national power superseded state authority as a result of the constitutional revolution of the New Deal era.

Tony Freyer

LICENSE CASES

LICENSE CASES (Thurlow v. Massachusetts, Fletcher v. Rhode Island, Peirce v. New Hampshire), 5 How. (46 U.S.) 504 (1847). In six opinions, with no majority, the United States Supreme Court upheld state statutes regulating the sale of alcoholic beverages that had been brought in from other states. The statutes were quadruply controversial: they involved temperance and prohibition, they impinged on interstate commerce, they interfered with property rights, and they were surrogates for the states' power to control enslaved persons and abolitionist propaganda. All eight sitting justices sustained the statutes on the basis of the states' police powers, but they disagreed on the problems of conflict between Congress's dormant power to regulate interstate commerce and concurrent state regulatory authority.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Swisher, Carl B. The Taney Period, 1836–1864. New York: Macmillan, 1974.

William M.Wiecek

See alsoInterstate Commerce Laws .