INTERSTATE BRIDGES AN THE COMMERCE CLAUSE.

This article discusses the relation between the states and the U.S. government in the regulation of interstate commerce. The Act to Regulate Commerce of 1887 indirectly affected the subject of interstate bridges. The act provides that the term railroad as used therein shall include all bridges used or operated in connection with any railroad. In a case before it in 1845 the Superior Court of Judicature upheld the power of state legislatures to authorize the construction of bridges over interstate rivers if the powers and actions of the country interpose no objection. The grant of power to Congress to regulate commerce does not itself operate to restrain the states from authorizing the construction of such structures if no actual legitimate legislation is contravened. The supreme court has also considered this to be a concurrent power and has upheld the validity of state legislation authorizing the erection of such bridges. But the court has pointed out that even in the matter of building a bridge, if Congress chooses to act, its action necessarily supersedes the action of the state. Bridges erected under the sanction of a state are considered to have been built with knowledge of the paramount power of Congress and subject to the future use by Congress of its constitutional power.