Horace Gray

“ Justice Bradley, again speaking for the court, and referring to the acts of congress establishing corporations to build railroads across the continent, said: 'It cannot at the present day be doubted that congress, under the power to regulate commerce among the several states, as well as to provide for postal accommodations and millitary exigencies, had authority to pass these laws. The power to construct, or to authorize individuals or corporations to construct, national highways and bridges from state to state, is essential to the complete control and regulation of interstate commerce. ”

“ Congress has likewise the power, exercised early in this century by successive acts in the case of the Cumberland or National road from the Potomac across the Alleghenies to the Ohio, to authorize the construction of a public highway connecting several states. ”

“ And whenever it becomes necessary, for the accomplishment of any object within the authority of congress, to exercise the right of eminent domain, and take private lands, making just compensation to the owners, congress may do this with or without a concurrent act of the state in which the lands lie. ”

“ But the wider power was very freely exercised, and much to the general satisfaction, in the creation of the vast system of railroads connecting the east with the Pacific, traversing states as well as territories, and employing the agency of state as well as federal corporations.' 127 U.S. 39, 40, 8 Sup. ”