<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Laws applied </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> U.S. Const . art . I sec. 8 clause 3 </Td> </Tr> <P> Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat .) 1 (1824), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation . The case was argued by some of America's most admired and capable attorneys at the time . Exiled Irish patriot Thomas Addis Emmet and Thomas J. Oakley argued for Ogden, while U.S. Attorney General William Wirt and Daniel Webster argued for Gibbons . </P> <P> In 1808 the Legislature of the State of New York granted to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton exclusive navigation privileges of all the waters within the jurisdiction of that State, with boats moved by fire or steam, for a term of thirty years . Livingston and Fulton subsequently also petitioned other states and territorial legislatures for similar monopolies, hoping to develop a national network of steamboat lines, but only the Orleans Territory accepted their petition and awarded them a monopoly on the lower Mississippi . </P>

The supreme court ruled that congress had the power to regulate interstate commerce in