In Gibbons, the Court examined whether a federal law that licensed ships to engage in the " coasting trade " preempted a New York law granting a 30-year monopoly to Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton to navigate the State's waterways by steamship.
32.
The United States maintained this term from its colonial era and began regulating the coastwise trade as early as 1793, with the Congressional passage of " An act for enrolling and licensing ships and vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries, and for regulating the same ", which passed on 18 February that year.
