Excerpt from The Act to Regulate Commerce: Construed by the Supreme Court

The Commerce Clause contains one of the most important grants of power to the United States to be found in the Federal Constitution. Adopted merely for the purpose of preventing disputes among the states which had recently formed the Con federation, it has been the source of varied and potent legisla tion governing the intricate problems of interstate traffic incident to a complicated and highly developed industrial and social life. Framed to suit the inconsequential problems offered by a traffic handled by stage coach, ox cart and sailing vessel, it has served as the vehicle to govern the important questions arising from an enormous volume of traffic handled by the railroad, the steamer, and other agencies of commerce. A preliminary chapter has been included to trace at least in outline the genesis and development of legislation under the Commerce Clause.

The literature of the subject, both political and economic as well as legal, appears to be well nigh inexhaustible. Yet there has seemed room for a further discussion of certain features of the Act to Regulate Commerce. The findings of the Interstate Commerce Commission to date fill some thirty large volumes. The decisions of the lower Federal courts upon this act are only less voluminous. On the other hand, the decisions of the Su preme Court which constitute the last word on the question, and from which no appeal can be taken, have often not been treated by writers on this subject with the measure of importance which should be accorded them. Many of the most important of these decisions have been handed down by that court since the appear ance of any treatise on this act. It has seemed desirable, there fore, to collate these decisions, to include an exhaustive discus sion of them within the confines of a single volume and to bring them down to the latest possible date. Such a volume could be of particular value to the lawyer who does not have at his dis posal a large legal library. It would constitute the law of the Act to Regulate Commerce so far as that law has been finally deter mined. Decisions of the lower courts, subject to review and, therefore, to being overruled, have been omitted from discussion in this work. It is hoped that the volume will fill a place hitherto unoccupied in the bibliography of the Act to Regulate Commerce.

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