Retreat from Judicial Nationalism When Andrew Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney to succeed John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States, he selected a brilliant jurist, astute politician, and a loyal Jacksonian. The majority of the court shared Taney’s political views, so he was able to shape judicial policy and shift power back to state governments in many key areas, particularly with respect to federalism and state police powers. In Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky (1837), the Court held that banknotes issued by a corporation chartered and owned by the State of Kentucky did not violate the Article I monetary prohibition against the issuance of bills of credit by the states. The decision gave the states greater financial flexibility without overturning Marshall’s 1830 decision in Craig v. Missouri invalidating notes issued by the states directly. In Bank of Augusta v. Earle (1839), the Taney court held that corporations do not have a constitutional right to do business in other states under the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause. Although they may do business across state lines as a matter of interstate comity, the states have the sovereign power to exclude out-of-state corporations from doing business within their borders.

The States and the Contract Clause One of Taney’s most significant achievements was limiting the Commerce Clause jurisprudence of the Marshall Court with respect to the states. In Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837), he held that implied obligations of contract could not be read into contracts between states and private parties. The Court thereby established a double standard for the contracts of states and the contracts of private parties. No rights not expressly granted in a charter or contract could be claimed against a state because states represented the general public interest. The rule was succinctly stated in Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company v. Debolt (1854): “The grant of privileges and exemptions to a corporation are strictly construed against the corporation, and in favor of the public. Nothing passes but what is granted in clear and explicit terms.” The Charles River Bridge case drew sharp criticism from conservatives. Chancellor James Kent of New York wrote that the ruling destabilized the entire body of contract law: “If the legislature can quibble away, or whittle away its contracts with impunity, the people will be sure to follow.” Daniel Webster believed, “the decision of the Court will have completely overturned, in my judgment, one great provision of the Constitution.” Notwithstanding the public interest exception, the Taney Court vigorously defended contract rights under ordinary circumstances. In Dodge v. Woolsey (1856), the Court held that contract rights expressly granted by the states were binding regardless of their effect on the public interest. Likewise, in Bronson v. Kinzie (1843) the Court held that states could not pass statutes impairing the rights of creditors.

Federal Commerce Power and the States Like the Marshall Court, the Taney Court found it difficult to determine where the states’ police powers ended and the federal commerce power began. In New York City v. Miln (1837), Justice Barbour ruled that the basic functions of state government to advance the general welfare were “complete, unqualified and exclusive” within the federal system. The Court elaborated on this view in the License Cases (1847), finding that states have concurrent jurisdiction with the federal government to regulate commerce so long as the state measures do not conflict with federal statutes. But a sharply divided court held in the Passenger Cases (1849) that “[a] concurrent power in two distinct sovereignties, to regulate the same thing, is as inconsistent in principle as it is impracticable in action.” The Court attempted to reconcile these contradictions in the case law by adopting the selective-exclusiveness doctrine, a theory of federal–state relations in areas of competing jurisdiction. In Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Company (1851) and Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia (1852), the Court held that federal jurisdiction is exclusive in matters of national concern but concurrent, though paramount, in areas of local concern. Thus in the Wheeling Bridge case, the court held that Congress’s exclusive jurisdiction over river navigation barred Virginia from building a bridge across the Ohio River. But in Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of Philadelphia (1852), the Court held that a pilotage regulation imposed by the state of Pennsylvania was constitutional because Congress had not preempted pilotage as an area of federal regulation.

Political Questions and the Court As late as the 1840s, Rhode Island continued to be governed by many of the terms of its old colonial charter, under which only freeholders enjoyed the franchise. Frustrated with the state of affairs, Thomas Dorr led a group of Democrats in calling a constitutional convention at Providence. The result was a “People’s” Constitution that enfranchised all white males. Rival governments were set up at Providence and Newport, and the Court was ultimately called upon to rule which was the legitimate government of the state. The Court effectively sidestepped the question in Ex parte Dorr (1844) and Luther v. Borden (1849). In Ex parte Dorr, the Court dismissed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that it could not issue writs on petitions from prisoners sentenced in the state courts. In Luther v. Borden, it declined to rule on the legitimacy issue on the ground that the issue was political in nature and therefore not judiciable. Such questions were best settled by politicians rather than by judges. The ruling would be cited as a precedent for Congressional Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Federal Diversity of Citizenship Jurisdiction In Strawbridge v. Curtiss (1806) and Bank of the United States v. Deveaux (1809), Chief Justice Marshall limited the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of the federal courts over suits involving corporations. He held that the federal courts have diversity jurisdiction over corporations only when the shareholders of a corporation were not citizens of the same state as the adversary party. The Taney court rejected this approach in Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company v. Letson (1844), ruling that diversity jurisdiction turned not on the citizenship of the shareholders, but on the state in which the corporation was domiciled. This approach treated corporations as legal persons and citizens of their domiciliary states. It provided corporations with a more favorable judicial forum than was then available in often hostile state courts.

Maritime Jurisdiction In The Steamboat Thomas Jefferson (1825), Chief Justice Marshall adopted the English “tidewater” rule for admiralty jurisdiction, ruling that federal admiralty jurisdiction extended only to seas and coastal rivers but not to inland bodies of water. The rapid growth of inland maritime commerce in the United States placed tremendous pressure on this approach to admiralty jurisdiction, limiting the federal courts only to cases where there was diversity of citizenship between the parties. In Propeller Genessee Chief v. Fitzhugh (1851), Chief Justice Taney responded to this pressure, abandoning Marshall’s tidewater rule as better suited to the geography of England than the United States.

Federal Common Law Section 39 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 requires federal courts exercising diversity jurisdiction to apply the laws of the states in which they sit. In Swift v. Tyson (1842), the Court abandoned the practice of following both the statutes and the decisional law of the states in diversity cases. Justice Story held that Section 39 requires the federal courts to follow only state statutes but not state decisional law. The federal courts were free to develop their own decisional law in diversity cases. Story hoped that this would create a body of federal common law that would serve as a model for the states and promote uniformity of law throughout the United States.

Appointments to the Supreme Court With Taney as Chef Justice, the court enjoyed a solid Democratic majority. Samuel Nelson, a moderate Democrat, was appointed by President Tyler and confirmed by a Whig Senate. President Polk nominated Levi Woodbury and Robert C. Grier, both loyal Democrats. Benjamin R. Curtis, a Whig, was appointed by Millard Fillmore at the recommendation of Daniel Webster. Franklin Pierce appointed John A. Campbell, a Democrat who would become the only justice to resign from the Court in order to support the Confederacy. Nathan Clifford, also a Democrat, was appointed by James Buchanan in 1857, making him the last justice appointed to the Court prior to the Civil War.