Gibbons v. Ogden

U.S. Supreme Court decision (1824) that established that states could not, by legislative enactment, interfere with the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The state of New York had authorized a monopoly on steamboat operation in its waters, an action upheld by a state chancery court, but the Supreme Court ruled that competing steamboat operators were protected by the terms of a federal license to engage in trade along a coast. The decision, an important development in the interpretation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, freed all navigation from monopoly control.