Gibbons vs. Ogden

10 Pages 2429 Words

r the acts of Congress for regulating the coasting trade gives a permission to carry on that trade can exercise no part of it. State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries are not within the power granted to Congress. The license is not merely intended to confer the national character. The power of regulating commerce extends to navigation carried on by vessels exclusively employed in transporting passengers. The power of regulating commerce extends to vessels propelled by steam or fire as well as to those navigated by the instrumentality of wind and sails.
Aaron Ogden filed his bill in the Court of Chancery of that State, against Thomas Gibbons, setting forth the several acts of the Legislature thereof, enacted for the purpose of securing to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive navigation of all the waters within the jurisdiction of that State, with boats moved by fire or steam, for a term of years which has not yet expired, and authorizing the Chancellor to award an injunction restraining any person whatever from navigating those waters with boats of that description. The bill stated an assignment from Livingston and Fulton to one John R. Livingston, and from him to the complainant, Ogden, of the right to navigate the waters between Elizabethtown, and other places in New Jersey, and the City of New York, and that Gibbons, the defendant below, was in possession of two steamboats, called the Stoudinger and the Bellona, which were actually employed in running between New York and Elizabethtown, in violation of the exclusive privilege conferred on the complainant, and praying an injunction to restrain the said Gibbons from using the said boats, or any other propelled by fire or steam, in navigating the waters within the territory of New York. The injunction having been awarded, the answer of Gibbons was filed, in which he sta...