Gibbons vs. Ogden

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Gibbons vs. Ogden

In the court case Gibbons vs. Ogden, the Supreme Court reviewed the commerce power held by Congress. The Supreme Court decided that commerce was not simply defined as traffic or the mere buying or selling of goods. Justice John Marshall explains the commerce clause as, “Commerce undoubtedly is traffic, but is something more – it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and part of nations, in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse” (McClenaghan 265). Woodrow Wilson once described the Supreme Court as a constitutional convention in a continuous session. In a constitution convention, the Constitution was written and interpreted. In the Supreme Court case Gibbons vs. Ogden, the Supreme Court uses the power of judicial review to interpret a part of the Constitution, this shows the relationship between a Supreme Court and Constitutional Convention.
The laws of New York granting to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive right of navigating the waters of that State with steamboats are in collision with the acts of Congress regulating the coasting trade, which, being made in pursuance of the Constitution, are supreme, and the State laws must yield to that supremacy, even though enacted in pursuance of powers acknowledged to remain in the States. The power of regulating commerce extends to the regulation of navigation. The power to regulate commerce extends to every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, and among the several States. It does not stop at the external boundary of a State. But it does not extend to commerce, which is completely internal. The power to regulate commerce is general, and has no limitations but such as is prescribed in the Constitution itself. The power to regulate commerce, so far as it extends, is exclusively vested in Congress, and a State.A license unde...