Commerce, Nullification, and Slavery

• Author: Jack Fruchtman
• Profession: Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Law and American Civilization at Towson University, Maryland
• Pages: 59-69

American Constitutional History: A Brief Introduction, First Edition. Jack Fruchtman.

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Commerce, Nullification,

andSlavery

Several economic issues – slavery, technological changes, and economic

development – dominated the slave republic. The Supreme Court

dealt with many of them, such as its 1837 decision concerning two

Massachusetts bridge companies that built spans across the Charles

River between Charlestown and Boston. Charles River Bridge Company

v. Warren Bridge Company focused on the tension between community

responsibility and private property. The constitutional question again

focused on the contracts clause. In 1785, the Charles River Bridge

Company received a 40‐year charter from the Massachusetts legisla-

ture for a toll bridge. The Warren Bridge Company, meantime, received

a second charter in 1832, only 300 yards from the existing one. Once

the company paid its construction costs, the bridge would become

apublic entity without tolls. The Charles River Bridge Company sued

Warren Bridge owners, alleging that the new span undermined the

value of its contract. Chief Justice Taney, writing for a majority of five

to two, ruled that Massachusetts entered into the original charter to

provide for the public good and not the private interests of a bridge

company. The Warren Bridge also was good for the community and

did not interfere with the operation of the Charles River Bridge, which

could still collect its tolls.

The same year, 1837, the Taney Court heard its first major inter-

state commerce case since Chief Justice Marshall’s 1824 landmark

Gibbons decision. In New York v. Miln, a six to one majority ruled as