ernment, although not entirely unwelcome, was at best uncomfortable. The Marshall Court was forced to reconcile the desire for state autonomy with the need for federal government. Marshall himself demonstrated the embodiment of this conflict as he was required to balance his personal Hamiltonian belief in a strong national government with the degree of federalism he thought the states could abide. The Courts of the 19th century took a decidedly pro-active role when it came to securing the states’ tenth amendment rights. In an 1824 opinion, Justice Johnson voiced the court’s position when he characterized federalism as being “. . . destructive to the harmony of states.” Throughout the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century, the Court would maintain this “new” anti-federalist position, the development of which is commonly associated with the eruption of industry, the 1887 passage of the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act.The court spent the late half of the 19th century and the early half of the 20th delineating clear limits to congressional power as it concerned the Interstate Commerce Clause. The court ruled that the Congress could regulate use of interstate channels, regulate and protect interstate commerce, and regulate the activities that substantially effect interstate commerce. This ruling, however, was extremely vague and thus highly case specific. The Court felt that it needed to provide some limitation upon the vast powers the law would grant congress by reserving specific privileges for the states.It is possible to track this conservative trend through an examination of the Court’s decisions beginning with an 1868 decision in which the Court found that the Commerce Clause did not cover the regulation of insurance companies. The Court’s second ruling on the Clause can be considered a landmark case for the limitation it put upo...
