Police Power and Commerce Power

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the tensions between local and federal regulation of mobility in the antebellum era. Southern and midwestern states used their police power to impose bonds, taxes, and registration on free black people. The Seamen Acts jailed free black sailors who entered southern ports from abroad, or from other states, for the duration of their stay. Critics objected that these acts violated the commerce clause, the treaty-making power of the United States, and the privileges and immunities of black citizens. When John Marshall defined federal commerce power in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) to include navigation, Southerners feared that Congress might use this power to regulate the mobility of free and enslaved black people. Slaveholders therefore welcomed the decision in New York v. Miln (1837) upholding a state immigration law as a legitimate exercise of police power, similar to laws regulating the mobility of free black people. Immigration, black mobility, and slavery remained tightly intertwined throughout the antebellum era.