In Spalding v. The People of the State of New York, Ex Rel. Frederick F. Backus, the Supreme Court was asked to determine whether a state legislature had authority to grant an exclusive right for navigation on certain waters within its jurisdiction. At issue in this case was a statute passed by the New York Legislature granting such rights to John Spaulding and his associates over part of Lake Ontario and other navigable waters in that state for twenty years from 1838-1858. The court held that while states do have some power with respect to their internal commerce, they cannot pass laws which interfere with or obstruct Congress’s constitutional power “to regulate commerce among several States” as granted under Article I Section 8 Clause 3 of the United States Constitution (the Commerce Clause). As such, it ruled that because this particular law interfered with interstate commerce it could not be enforced and declared it unconstitutional.

In Spalding v. The People of the State of New York, Ex Rel. Frederick F. Backus, Chief Justice Taney delivered a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the Court should not have granted certiorari to review the case because it was an appeal from a state court decision and thus beyond its jurisdiction as defined by Article III of the Constitution. He further argued that even if there were federal questions involved in this case, they had been resolved by prior decisions made by both state and federal courts; therefore, no new issues needed to be addressed or decided upon by this Court. Finally, Taney contended that allowing appeals from state court decisions would create an unnecessary burden on both parties involved in such cases since they would need to litigate their claims twice - once at the state level and then again before this Supreme Court - thereby wasting time and resources for all concerned without any real benefit being gained from doing so.