American Government and Politics Today, Brief Edition, 2014-2015

CHAPTER THREE • FEdERAlISM 55

not navigation or the transport of people. The second issue was whether the national gov­

ernment’s power to regulate interstate commerce extended to commerce within a state

(intrastate commerce) or was limited strictly to commerce among the states (interstate

commerce). The third issue was whether the power to regulate interstate commerce was a

concurrent power (as the New York court had concluded) or an exclusive national power.

Marshall’s Ruling. Marshall defined commerce as all commercial interactions—all busi­

ness dealings—including navigation and the transport of people. Marshall also held that

the commerce power of the national government could be exercised in state jurisdictions,

even though it could not reach solely intrastate commerce. Finally, Marshall emphasized

that the power to regulate interstate commerce was an exclusive national power. Marshall

held that because Gibbons was duly authorized by the na tional government to navigate in

interstate waters, he could not be prohibited from doing so by a state court.

Marshall’s expansive interpretation of the commerce clause in Gibbons v. Ogden allowed

the national government to exercise increasing authority over economic affairs throughout

the land. Congress did not immediately exploit this broad grant of power. In the 1930s

and subsequent decades, however, the commerce clause became the primary constitutional

basis for national government regulation—as you will read later in this chapter.

States’ Rights and the Resort to Civil War

The controversy over slavery that led to the Civil War took the form of a dispute over national

government supremacy versus the rights of the separate states. Essentially, the Civil War

brought to an ultimate and violent climax the ideological debate begun by the Federalist and

John Brown (1800–1859), an advocate of abolishing slavery, led an ill-fated raid on a federal

arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Brown had hoped to set off a slave uprising. He was executed on

charges of treason and murder. Today, we would doubtless call him a terrorist. Why do some people

nevertheless consider him a hero? (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

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