Definition
The Interstate Commerce Act is a federal statute enacted by Congress in 1887 that established the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for the railroad industry and, by later amendment, transportation more broadly. The Act created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the first federal independent regulatory agency, charged with administering and enforcing its provisions.
The Act's principal objectives were threefold: (1) to require that railroad charges for transportation be just and reasonable; (2) to prohibit unjust discrimination in rates and services among shippers, localities, and classes of freight; and (3) to ban pooling arrangements by which competing railroads divided traffic or earnings to eliminate competition. Carriers subject to the Act were required to publish their tariffs publicly and to adhere to those published rates.
The 1887 Act was substantially limited in early judicial interpretation, which restricted the ICC's authority to fix rates and curtailed its reach over intrastate portions of interstate shipments. Congress responded with a series of amendments — most significantly the Elkins Act (1903), the Hepburn Act (1906), the Mann-Elkins Act (1910), and the Transportation Act of 1920 — that progressively expanded ICC authority, empowered the Commission to set maximum rates, extended coverage to additional carriers including pipelines and, later, motor carriers and water carriers, and eventually directed the ICC to affirmatively promote an adequate national transportation system.
The ICC itself was abolished in 1995 by the ICC Termination Act, with its remaining functions transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.
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Common Confusion
The Interstate Commerce Act is frequently confused with the constitutional Commerce Clause and with the broader concept of interstate commerce regulation generally. The Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8) is the constitutional grant of power to Congress; the Interstate Commerce Act is a specific statutory exercise of that power directed at transportation. A researcher encountering "interstate commerce" in a historical source must determine whether the reference is to the constitutional doctrine, to the 1887 statute, or to the regulatory regime built up by its amendments — these are related but distinct bodies of law. Additionally, the ICC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are sometimes conflated in older secondary sources; the ICC was a transportation-specific body predating the FTC by nearly three decades.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term presents several navigational traps for corpus researchers.
First, the Act is a moving target. The 1887 text is only the starting point. References to "the Interstate Commerce Act" in sources from 1890 differ materially from references in sources from 1910 or 1940, because the amendments fundamentally altered the statute's scope and the Commission's powers. A treatise or case discussing the Act without specifying which version or which amendment controls can be deeply misleading. Always identify the date of your source and cross-check which amendments were then in force.
Second, early judicial interpretation gutted portions of the original Act before Congress restored them. The Supreme Court significantly curtailed ICC rate-setting authority in the 1890s, meaning that sources from roughly 1890–1906 describe a substantially weaker regulatory regime than Congress originally intended and later achieved. Historical sources from this period should not be read as describing the Act's full operational scope.
Third, coverage expanded dramatically over time. The 1887 Act applied to railroads and certain express companies. Successive amendments brought in sleeping car companies, pipelines, telegraph and telephone carriers (briefly), motor carriers (Motor Carrier Act, 1935), and domestic water carriers. A source discussing "ICC jurisdiction" must be read with attention to the date, because the answer changed repeatedly.
Fourth, the dissolution of the ICC in 1995 means that modern researchers working on surface transportation regulation will encounter the Surface Transportation Board (STB) as the successor authority. Historical ICC precedents retain relevance for STB proceedings but require careful treatment.
Fifth, the Act sits at the intersection of constitutional Commerce Clause doctrine and statutory administrative law. Researchers should be alert to whether a given source is arguing a constitutional point (whether Congress has power to regulate) or a statutory point (what the Act actually commands), as these are analytically separate and often conflated in older materials.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary describes the Act as designed "to secure just and reasonable charges for transportation" and "to prohibit unjust discriminations in the rendition" of services — language that tracks the Act's own text closely. Bouvier's framing reflects the version of the Act as understood in the early twentieth century, after the Hepburn Act had strengthened the Commission's hand but before the Transportation Act of 1920 introduced the affirmative system-building mandate.
Bouvier's treatment is useful as a period snapshot but, as with most historical legal dictionaries, does not account for the ongoing amendment cycle that continuously reshaped the statute. No single historical dictionary entry can capture the Act as a whole; researchers should treat dictionary descriptions as reflecting the law at approximately the date of the dictionary's edition.
What historical sources tend to underemphasize is the significance of the rate publication and adherence requirement — the anti-rebate mechanism — which proved in practice to be one of the most litigated and consequential provisions, particularly for agricultural shippers who had previously negotiated secret rate concessions with the major railroads.
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Jurisdictional Note
The Interstate Commerce Act operated exclusively as federal law governing interstate and foreign commerce by common carriers. State railroad commissions retained concurrent authority over purely intrastate rates and services, which generated substantial litigation over the line between interstate and intrastate commerce. The Transportation Act of 1920 partially addressed this by authorizing the ICC to prescribe intrastate rates when they created undue prejudice against interstate commerce.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Dormant Commerce Clause — State Discrimination and Burden on Interstate Commerce (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia): essential background for understanding the constitutional framework within which the Act operated and the limits on state regulatory authority that ran alongside federal ICC jurisdiction.
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