Commercial Aspect of Uniform State Laws

Authors

Francis B. James

Abstract

A T the close of the American Revolution and even after the adoption of the articles of Confederation, each American State was not only a political unit but an industrial and commercial unit. Meafis of communication were few and cost of transportation almost prohibitive except in border and coast cities. Each State not only determined its political future but its own industrial and commercial policy. The Constitution of the United States, adopted in 1789, recognized the fact that each State continued as a political unit and at the same time created another political unit, the nation at large. It also recognized in part the Union as one commercial unit and each State as a separate commercial unit. On the limited subjects of foreign commerce, bankruptcy, coinage, patents and copyrights, exclusive jurisdiction was vested in Congress to legislate for the entire nation. On the great and important subject of commerce it divided authority by vesting in Congress power to regulate interstate commerce and left each State to regulate its own commerce. By leaving to each State power to regulate all production and its own commerce, it limited the power of Congress by restricting that body to the regulation of interstate commerce. Therefore, there grew up a separate body of laws in each State of the American Union. An unfortunate (and by many now believed, erroneous) decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in x869, in the insurance cases, that a contract between citizens of different States did not constitute interstate commerce checked the growth of that unity of law so convenient to the development of industries national in character. While these constitutional provisions tended to localize industry and commerce, the invention of new means of transportation by steam and rail and new methods of communication by telephone and telegraph caused commerce to override State lines and to make that economically national which was legally local. In other words, that which by law is the commerce of each of the forty-five States of the American Union became in fact commerce national in character. It was the failure of our forefathers to foresee that some day the States would become one country for commercial purposes that resulted in vesting in Congress the power to regulate only interstate commerce instead of vesting in that body power to regulate all commerce. *An address delivered before The Cincinnati Credit Men's Association at The Business

Recommended Citation

Francis B. James, Commercial Aspect of Uniform State Laws, 5 Mich. L. Rev. 509 (1907).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol5/iss7/2