Gibbons V. Ogden Case Analysis

Dating back to the 1770s, there has been a significant amount of support for strong national powers by our nation’s government in regards to interstate commerce. The scope of the Commerce Clause outlines that, “Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes” (Art. I, S. 8, Cl. 3). Interstate commerce encompasses any work involving or related to the movement of persons or materials across state lines or from foreign countries. The parameters of the policy were tested in the Supreme Court case of Gibbons v. Ogden, decided by John Marshall in 1824. Chief Justice Marshall was a strong supporter of national power and took advantage of the concept of strict constructionism to create a broad interpretation of Congress’s power to regulate commerce. The Commerce Clause interpretation made by Marshall in 1824 empowered Congress to gain jurisdiction over numerous aspects of intrastate and interstate commerce as well as non-commerce
Gibbons operated a steamboat between a New Jersey port and New …show more content…
The first standard involved the meaning of the term “commerce”. It was contended by Ogden’s counsel that commerce meant nothing more than buying and selling. Marshall, however, held that the power to regulate navigation was “as expressly granted, as if that term had been added to the word commerce” . He then stated that commerce not only encompassed every type of commercial intercourse among states and nations, but also possessed the power to prescribe rules for carrying out those procedures. He claimed that, “In regulating commerce with foreign nations, the power of congress does not stop at the jurisdictional lines of the several states. It would be a very useless power, if it could not pass those lines. The commerce of the United States with foreign nations, is that of the whole United States; every district has a right to participate in