Gibbons v. Ogden

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Americans first began experimenting with steam power in the 1780s, and Robert Fulton produced the first practical steamboat in 1807. Nevertheless, nearly two more decades passed before the Supreme Court addressed the issues contained in Gibbons v. Ogden. Given the public interest in steam travel and the lucrative profits to be made from steamboat lines, why did so much time elapse before the legal conflict over steamboats reached the nation's highest court?
• 2. Why did litigants, attorneys, and justices involved in Gibbons v. Ogden center most of their arguments on factors such as federal commerce power and state monopolies instead of the rather obvious issue of federal patent rights? What about the issue of patents made it such a controversial or irrelevant topic?
• 3. Why did neither John Marshall nor William Johnson issue specific guidelines for federal and state commerce regulation? Could the justices' reasons have had anything to do with the explosive issue of slavery?
• 4. In the 1930s, New Deal attorneys argued that Gibbons v. Ogden foreshadowed the rise of a strong federal government with the ability to regulate not merely economic policies but also social reform across state lines. Is this a valid interpretation of Marshall's decision?