Judicial Attitudes Toward State-Federal Relations

In August, 1787, while the Convention at Philadelphia was deliberating upon the commerce clause, the delegates witnessed a demonstration of John Fitch's steamboat, propelled uncertainly against the current of the Delaware. In the development of American federalism it may seem that technology—of which Fitch's steamboat will for the moment serve as a symbol—has counted for more than what the statesmen in Independence Hall worked out on paper for the distribution of power between state and nation. This is not to bespeak for poor John Fitch a niche beside the fifty-five founders; steam would have produced its centralizing effect upon economy and government even had there been no contribution by Fitch—who was, moreover, a cantankerous anti-Federalist in politics. I mention the coincidence merely to suggest that ingenious men invent and enterprising men initiate shifts in the nation's economy, and that the institutions of federalism have to adjust themselves to the resultant thrusts and resistances in the social medium. It is only at the end of the cycle that there comes a decision by the Supreme Court holding that the state had full power to act in the premises, or that the matter belonged exclusively to Congress, or that the command of the state was enforceable until Congress broke its silence.