area reserved for the state itself. This remark created a particularly pro-cooperative federalism effect. In order for states to claim the right to regulate under the Tenth Amendment, it would be necessary for the state to prove that the issue, whatever it may be, did not affect the commerce of another state, a test that has proven difficult to pass. Meanwhile, the political effects of the Gibbons v Ogden case was evident in subsequent decisions. One such example is that of the United States v E.C. Knight Co. 156 U.S. 1. The case involved the Sherman Antitrust Act, which intended to restrain monopolies. In this case, the United States argued that the consolidation of 98% of all the sugar refined in America constituted a monopoly. Seventy years after Gibbons v Ogden, the Supreme Court now led by dual federalists erroneously, the began making it difficult for Congress to apply anti-trust laws. Prior to this decision there was no legal precedent on national intervention in the area of production. This case laid the foundation for future cases that would limit the jurisdiction of the national government to areas of economic distribution. A strict reading of the enumerated power given to Congress and an outright neglect of the Necessary and Proper Clause informed this decision. The decision in the case was more about a political desire to check the power of the national government rather than a close interpretation of the Constitution as it related to congressional powers. In Hammer v Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251, the Supreme Court relied on the dualist approach used in its decision in the E.C. Knight Co. case. Here the Supreme Court began to separate economic functions between what was under state control. Using a narrow approach, the court ruled that mining, agriculture and manufacturing were out of federal jurisdiction and that any law made in reference to these methods would be unconstitutional. As such, the 1916 Federal Child Labor Act was d...
