Land Transportation

Federal Stimulation of Land Transportation (Congressional Regulation)

The settlement of the interior of the country led Congress to seek to facilitate access by first encouraging the construction of highways. In successive acts, it authorized construction of the Cumberland and the National Road from the Potomac across the Alleghenies to the Ohio, reserving certain public lands and revenues from land sales for construction of public roads to new states granted statehood.1 Acquisition and settlement of California stimulated interest in railway lines to the west, but it was not until the Civil War that Congress voted aid in the construction of a line from the Missouri River to the Pacific; four years later, it chartered the Union Pacific Company. 2

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The litigation growing out of these and subsequent activities settled several propositions. First, Congress may provide highways and railways for interstate transportation; 3 second, it may charter private corporations for that purpose; third, it may vest such corporations with the power of eminent domain in the states; and fourth, it may exempt their franchises from state taxation.4

Resources

References

This text about Land Transportation is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 1] Cf. Indiana v. United States, 148 U.S. 148 (1893).

[Footnote 2] 12 Stat. 489 (1862); 13 Stat. 356 (1864); 14 Stat. 79 (1866).

[Footnote 3] The result then as well as now might have followed from Congress's power of spending, independently of the Commerce Clause, as well as from its war and postal powers, which were also invoked by the Court in this connection.

[Footnote 4] Thomson v. Pacific R.R., 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 579 (1870); California v. Pacific R.R. Co. (Pacific Ry. Cases), 127 U.S. 1 (1888); Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Ry., 135 U.S. 641 (1890); Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 153 U.S. 525 (1894).

Tables of Contents

• Land Transportation and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Land Transportation and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)

Federal Regulation of Land Transportation (Congressional Regulation))

Congressional regulation of railroads may be said to have begun in 1866. By the Garfield Act, Congress authorized all railroad companies operating by steam to interconnect with each other “so as to form continuous lines for the transportation of passengers, freight, troops, governmental supplies, and mails, to their destination.” 5 An act of the same year provided federal chartering and protection from conflicting state regulations to companies formed to construct and operate telegraph lines.6 Another act regulated the transportation by railroad of livestock so as to preserve the health and safety of the animals.7

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Congress's entry into the rate regulation field was preceded by state attempts to curb the abuses of the rail lines in the Middle West, which culminated in the “Granger Movement.” Because the businesses were locally owned, the Court at first upheld state laws as not constituting a burden on interstate commerce; 8 but after the various business panics of the 1870s and 1880s drove numerous small companies into bankruptcy and led to consolidation, there emerged great interstate systems. Thus in 1886, the Court held that a state may not set charges for carriage even within its own boundaries of goods brought from without the state or destined to points outside it; that power was exclusively with Congress.9 In the following year, Congress passed the original Interstate Commerce Act.10 A Commission was authorized to pass upon the “reasonableness” of all rates by railroads for the transportation of goods or persons in interstate commerce and to order the discontinuance of all charges found to be “unreasonable.” In ICC v. Brimson,11 the Court upheld the Act as “necessary and proper” for the enforcement of the Commerce Clause and also sustained the Commission's power to go to court to secure compliance with its orders. Later decisions circumscribed somewhat the ICC's power.12

Land Transportation: Developments

Expansion of the Commission's authority came in the Hepburn Act of 1906 13 and the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910.14 By the former, the Commission was explicitly empowered, after a full hearing on a complaint, “to determine and prescribe just and reasonable” maximum rates; by the latter, it was authorized to set rates on its own initiative and empowered to suspend any increase in rates by a carrier until it reviewed the change. At the same time, the Commission's jurisdiction was extended to telegraphs, telephones, and cables.15 By the Motor Carrier Act of 1935,16 the ICC was authorized to regulate the transportation of persons and property by motor vehicle common carriers.

Other Aspects

The modern powers of the Commission were largely defined by the Transportation Acts of 1920 17 and 1940.18 The jurisdiction of the Commission covers not only the characteristics of the rail, motor, and water carriers in commerce among the states but also the issuance of securities by them and all consolidations of existing companies or lines.19 Further, the Commission was charged with regulating so as to foster and promote the meeting of the transportation needs of the country. Thus, from a regulatory exercise originally begun as a method of restraint there has emerged a policy of encouraging a consistent national transportation policy.20

Resources

References

This text about Land Transportation is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 5] 14 Stat. 66 (1866).

[Footnote 6] 14 Stat. 221 (1866).

[Footnote 7] 17 Stat. 353 (1873).

[Footnote 8] Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877); Chicago B. & Q. R. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U.S. 155 (1877); Peik v. Chicago & N.W. Ry., 94 U.S. 164 (1877); Pickard v. Pullman Southern Car Co., 117 U.S. 34 (1886).

[Footnote 9] Wabash, St. L. & P. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U.S. 557 (1886). A variety of state regulations have been struck down on the burdening-of-commerce rationale. E.g., Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761 (1945) (train length); Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R., 272 U.S. 605 (1926) (locomotive accessories); Pennsylvania R.R. v. Public Service Comm'n, 250 U.S. 566 (1919). But the Court has largely exempted regulations with a safety purpose, even a questionable one. Brotherhood of Firemen v. Chicago, R.I. & P. R.R., 393 U.S. 129 (1968).

[Footnote 10] 24 Stat. 379 (1887).

[Footnote 11] 154 U.S. 447, 470 (1894).

[Footnote 12] ICC v. Alabama Midland Ry., 168 U.S. 144 (1897); Cincinnati, N.O. & Texas Pacific Ry. v. ICC, 162 U.S. 184 (1896).

[Footnote 13] 34 Stat. 584.

[Footnote 14] 36 Stat. 539.

[Footnote 15] These regulatory powers are now vested, of course, in the Federal Communications Commission.

[Footnote 16] 49 Stat. 543 (1935).

[Footnote 17] 41 Stat. 474.

[Footnote 18] 54 Stat. 898, U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq. The two acts were “intended . . . to provide a completely integrated interstate regulatory system over motor, railroad, and water carriers.” United States v. Pennsylvania R.R., 323 U.S. 612, 618-19 (1945). The ICC's powers include authority to determine the reasonableness of a joint through international rate covering transportation in the United States and abroad and to order the domestic carriers to pay reparations in the amount by which the rate is unreasonable. Canada Packers v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry., 385 U.S. 182 (1966), and cases cited.

[Footnote 19] Disputes between the ICC and other government agencies over mergers have occupied a good deal of the Court's time. Cf. United States v. ICC, 396 U.S. 491 (1970). See also County of Marin v. United States, 356 U.S. 412 (1958); McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U.S. 67 (1944); Penn-Central Merger & N & W Inclusion Cases, 389 U.S. 486 (1968).

[Footnote 20] Among the various provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act which have been upheld are: a section penalizing shippers for obtaining transportation at less than published rates, Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U.S. 56 (1908); a section construed as prohibiting the hauling of commodities in which the carrier had at the time of haul a proprietary interest, United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366 (1909); a section abrogating life passes, Louisville & Nashville R.R. v. Mottley, 219 U.S. 467 (1911); a section authorizing the ICC to regulate the entire bookkeeping system of interstate carriers, including intrastate accounts, ICC v. Goodrich Transit Co., 224 U.S. 194 (1912); a clause affecting the charging of rates different for long and short hauls. Intermountain Rate Cases, 234 U.S. 476 (1914).

Tables of Contents

• Land Transportation and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Land Transportation and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)