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"[CapnR to Gianni #1426]Chief Justice Chase did not alter one word of the Constitution. He ruled that the original intent of the framers was that the Union was paramount and that unilateral secession was, is, and will remain illegal.

"Clearly, by CapnR standards, Chief Justice Marshall's ruling decided what was and what is and will remain the final word."

You really need to get a grip. Secession will remain illegal in the United States until, (1) Congress passes a law creating a framework for unilateral secession, (2) there is a amendment to the Constitution allowing for unilateral secession, or (3) some State tries to secede again, takes their cause to court, and the USSC eventually over-rules the principles in Texas v White.

Your quotation from Gibbons v Ogden (1824) is fine and good, but as usual, you have taken it out of context and missed the main point of the case altogether. Marshall's passing historical reference to the nature of governance under the Articles was not the point of the case.

"The case of Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), decided 35 years after the ratification of the Constitution, was a key turning point for the expansion of federal power to address national problems.

"Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government was virtually powerless to enact policies to rationalize the actions of states. One problem that emerged during this time was the way in which state policies tended to restrict commerce within and beyond their borders, making market exchanges inefficient and costly. In the Constitution, the framers included the Commerce Clause in Article I, Section 8 to address this issue. The Commerce Clause states that Congress has the power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States. . . ." The hope was that giving Congress such a power would help to unify commerce policies thereby making market exchanges more efficient and less costly.

"Though the clause clearly gave Congress some power over commerce, it was unclear just how much. It was also unclear what constituted commerce. The Gibbons case clarified some of these issues under a decision issued by Chief Justice John Marshall, who had nationalist intentions.

"In 1808, Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston acquired a monopoly from the New York state legislature to operate steamboats on the state's waters. This monopoly extended to interstate waterways, those areas of water that stretch between states. Aaron Ogden held a Fulton-Livingston license to operate steamboats under this monopoly. However, Thomas Gibbons held a federal coasting license, granted under a 1793 Act of Congress, and operated steamboats between New Jersey and New York that competed with Ogden's."

In the unanimous decision, Chief Justice Marshall wrote:

". . . Rivers and bays, in many cases, form the divisions between States; and thence it was obvious, that if the States should make regulations for the navigation of these waters, and such regulations should be repugnant and hostile, embarrassment would necessarily happen to the general intercourse of the community. Such events had actually occurred, and had created the existing state of things.

"By the law of New-York, no one can navigate the bay of New-York, the North River, the Sound, the lakes, or any of the waters of that State, by steam vessels, without a license from the grantees of New-York, under penalty of forfeiture of the vessel.

"By the law of the neighbouring State of Connecticut, no one can enter her waters with a steam vessel having such license.

"By the law of New-Jersey, if any citizen of that State shall be restrained, under the New-York law, from using steam boats between the ancient shores of New-Jersey and New-York, he shall be entitled to an action for damages, in New-Jersey, with treble costs against the party who thus restrains or impedes him under the law of New-York!

"It would hardly be contended, that all these acts were consistent with the laws and constitution of the United States. If there were no power in the general government, to control this extreme belligerent legislation of the States, the powers of the government were essentially deficient. . . .

"Few things were better known, than the immediate causes which led to the adoption of the present constitution . . . that the prevailing motive was to regulate commerce; to rescue it from the embarrassing and destructive consequences, resulting from the legislation of so many different States, and to place it under the protection of a uniform law.

". . . The entire purpose for which the delegates assembled at Annapolis, was to devise means for the uniform regulation of trade. They found no means, but in a general government.

"We do not find, in the history of the formation and adoption of the constitution, that any man speaks of a general concurrent power, in the regulation of foreign and domestic trade, as still residing in the States. The very object intended, more than any other, was to take away such power. If it had not so provided, the constitution would not have been worth accepting.

". . . What is it that is to be regulated? Not the commerce of the several States, respectively, but the commerce of the United States. Henceforth, the commerce of the States was to be an unit; and the system by which it was to exist and be governed, must necessarily be complete, entire, and uniform. Its character was to be described in the flag which waved over it, E PLURIBUS UNUM.

"The subject to be regulated is commerce; . . . it becomes necessary to settle the meaning of the word. The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation. . . . Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse. . . . The mind can scarcely conceive a system for regulating commerce between nations, which shall exclude all laws concerning navigation. . . .

"The subject to which the power is . . . applied, is to commerce "among the several States." The word "among" means intermingled with. A thing which is among others, is intermingled with them. Commerce among the States, cannot stop at the external boundary line of each State, but may be introduced into the interior.

"It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce, which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a power would be inconvenient, and is certainly unnecessary.

"Comprehensive as the word among is, it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one. The phrase is not one which would probably have been selected to indicate the completely interior traffic of a State, because it is not an apt phrase for that purpose. . . . The genius and character of the whole government seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally; but not to those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government. The completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself."

From Gibbons v Ogden, LandmarkCases.org

The case was about the supremecy of federal and Constitutional law over State laws regards issues of interstate commerce. It wasn't about forms of government. It did not negate any laws passed by the Congresses of the Confederation (1781-1789). In fact, several of these "pre-Constitutional" laws are still on the books. Marshall's characterization of the Confederation as a "league" was a common point of view - you might call it the conventional wisdom of the day. However, Marshall's historical characterization was not germane to the main issue and is not, in itself, precendent-setting. It's background.