particular case been suggested, the language
would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a
special exception."

The immense significance of this decision was not immediately apparent.
The peculiar immunity which it gave to private property could not be
appreciated until the rise of corporations with concentrated capital.
Not even the Chief Justice foresaw that the guaranty of inviolability
which he had thrown about a private educational corporation would be
demanded with equal right by the great business corporations of the
succeeding era.

[Map: Highways of the United States about 1825]

In the famous case of _Gibbons_ v. _Ogden_ (1824), the Supreme Court
gave an interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution which
also had a profound effect upon subsequent history. In the course of its
decision the court declared unconstitutional a law of the State of New
York which had granted an exclusive right to operate steamboats in the
waters of New York. The regulation of commerce, the court held, had been
given exclusively to Congress, and "commerce" as used in the
Constitution comprehended not merely traffic and intercourse but also
navigation. The power to regulate was regarded as a unit. In regulating
commerce with foreign nations, the power of Congress does not stop at
the jurisdictional lines of the several States. "If a foreign voyage may
commence or terminate at a port within a State, then the power of
Congress may be exercised within a State." Similarly, the court reasoned
that commerce "among the States" cannot stop at the external boundary of
each State. "Commerce among the States must of necessity be commerce
with the States." In short, while expressly disclaiming that Congress
had the power to regulate the internal commerce of a State, the court
asserted the complete control of Congress over inter-state commerce so
far as navigation was concerned. The deeper significance of this
interpretation of the commerce clause appeared only when railroads began
to span the continent and the jurisdictional lines of States were
crossed and re-crossed by an ever-increasing volume of trade.

Twenty-five years had wrought a vast change in the position of the
national judiciary in the American constitutional system. "It is now
seen on every hand," wrote Attorney-General Wirt, urging the appointment
of Chancellor Kent to a vacancy on the Supreme Court bench, "that the
functions to be perfor