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Gibbons then sued Ogden in federal court with the help of another lawyer of considerable oratorical skill experienced in such matters: Daniel Webster. Webster’s argument was that the steamboat monopolies granted by the individual states violated the commerce clause of the Constitution. In 1824 Gibbons v. Ogden was decided by the Supreme Court in the aging Gibbons’s favor. Gibbons v. Ogden went on to become the landmark case affirming that only the federal government had the right to regulate interstate commerce. Waterways and roads connecting states all fell within the framework, as ruled by the court: The era of monopoly grants was over. Indeed, it fell upon the native southerner Gibbons, a plantation owner from Savannah, to affirm the superiority of federal rights over the states’ rights in matters of interstate commerce. •
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