Supreme Court in Nebbia: "An ominous fork in the road"

The immense pressures inflicted on the United States by the Great Depression of the 1930s forced the Supreme Court on several occasions to confront the scope of a state’s police power to regulate economic activity in the name of the general welfare.

In the landmark case of Nebbia v. New York (1934), the Court, in a sharply divided 5-4 decision, saved the American dairy industry when it uphel...