Gibbons v. Ogden

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=Gibbons v. Ogden
ArgueDate=February 4
ArgueYear=1824
DecideDate=March 2
DecideYear=1824
FullName=Thomas Gibbons, Appellant v. Aaron Ogden, Respondent
USVol=22
USPage=1
Citation=22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1; 16 L. Ed. 23; 1824 U.S. LEXIS 370
Prior=Appeal from the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors of the State of New York
Subsequent=
Holding=The New York law was found invalid due to the Supremacy clause. The interstate commerce clause designated power to Congress to regulate interstate commerce.
SCOTUS=1823-1826
Majority=Marshall
JoinMajority=Washington, Todd, Duvall, Story, Thompson
Concurrence=Johnson
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. art. I

"Gibbons v. Ogden", 22 U.S. 1 (1824), [ [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=22&page=1 22 U.S. 1] Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

The case was argued by some of America's most admired and capable attorneys at the time. Exiled Irish patriot Thomas Addis Emmet and Thomas J. Oakley argued for Ogden, while William Wirt and Daniel Webster argued for Gibbons.

Case

The case started from an attempt by the State of New York to grant a monopoly of steamboat operation between New York and neighboring New Jersey. Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston were granted such exclusive rights. They licensed the New Jersey operator Aaron Ogden, formerly a U.S. Senator and Governor of New Jersey, to operate the ferry between New York City and Elizabeth Point in New Jersey. Thomas Gibbons was operating a competing ferry service which had been licensed by Congress in regulating the coasting trade. Ogden obtained an injunction from a New York court against Gibbons to keep him out of New York waters, maintaining that navigation was not a distinct form of commerce, and was thus a legitimate area of state regulation. Gibbons then sued for entry into the state, and the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Decision of the Court

The sole argued source of Congress's power to promulgate the law at issue was the commerce clause. Accordingly, the Court had to answer whether the law regulated "commerce" that was "among the several states." With respect to "commerce," the Court held that commerce is more than mere traffic--that is the trade of commodities--it is also intercourse. This broader definition includes navigation. The Court defined "among" as "intermingled with."

The Court found in favor of Gibbons, stating that "The mind can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between nations which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation."

Marshall's ruling determined that "a Congressional power to regulate navigation is as expressly granted as if that term had been added to the word 'commerce'."

The Court went on to conclude that Congressional power over commerce should extend to the regulation of all aspects of it, overriding state law to the contrary:

:If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations and among the several states is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States.

Importance of the Case

Some argue that the decision in "Gibbons v. Ogden" survived until 1895, when the court began to limit Congressional power in the case of "United States v. E. C. Knight Co.", 156 U.S. 1 (1895). Although this marked the start of a 40 year period of history during which the commerce clause was limited in scope, during the 1930s and from then until at least the 1990s, the Supreme Court apparently returned to its broad view of the commerce clause originally established in Gibbons v. Ogden.

However there is also the view that the meaning of Commerce that was decided upon in Gibbons was limited in extent since the decision could be read that only navigation was read into the meaning of the federal commerce clause due to the relationship between the flow of goods and the transportation of those goods across state lines. So the decision pertaining to the E.C Knight case could be viewed as not being a radical departure but a continuation of the original jurisprudence. Just to mention the court under Gibbons specifically stated that there are limits upon the federal commerce power but chose not to put into detail what those limits were, besides that goods specifically made, moved and sold within one state were exclusively beyond the reach of the federal commerce power. That part of the Gibbons ruling stands in direct contrast to the post New Deal decision in Wickard v. Filburn.

Opinion excerpts

♦Defining what the power to “regulate Commerce” is:

♦In interpreting the power of Congress as to commerce “among the several states”:

♦Defining how far the power of Congress extends:

The ICC, a commission set up in the aftermath of the Ogden decision, has recently been disbanded.

Other developments

The Court was also asked in this case to determine whether New York had exceeded its power in issuing a patent to Robert Fulton, which had been assigned to Ogden, and which was also a basis of the action against Gibbons. The Court declined to address the issue, [Id. at 239.] and did not do so for over a hundred years thereafter.

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 22

References

*Jean Edward Smith, "John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation", New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
*Jean Edward Smith, "The Constitution And American Foreign Policy", St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1989.

External links

*caselaw source
case="Gibbons v. Ogden", 22 U.S. 1 (1824)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./22/1/
justia=http://www.justia.us/us/22/1/case.html