ABSTRACT
The constitution of the United States grants to Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". On August 17, 1807, the North River Steamboat made an upriver voyage from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours. Designed by Robert Fulton, a gifted engineer and shameless self-promoter, able to sail inland waterways without the need for wind or currents. In Paris, Fulton and Livingston built an experimental steamboat and successfully sailed it on the Seine. The profitability of a steamboat between New York City and the state capital in Albany led to the first serious challenge to the Fulton-Livingston group. The monopoly New York had granted to Fulton and Robert Livingston pertained only to steamboat travel within the state, and so the question, according to Kent, was not what powers Congress had, but rather what powers remained with the state.
