e distribution of power over
interstate commerce. It may either permit the states to regulate the
commerce in a manner which would otherwise not be permissible,[791] or
exclude state regulation even of matters of peculiarly local concern
which nevertheless affect interstate commerce.[792]

"But in general Congress has left it to the courts to formulate the
rules thus interpreting the commerce clause in its application,
doubtless because it has appreciated the destructive consequences to the
commerce of the nation if their protection were withdrawn,[793] and has
been aware that in their application state laws will not be invalidated
without the support of relevant factual material which will 'afford a
sure basis' for an informed judgment.[794] Meanwhile, Congress has
accommodated its legislation, as have the states, to these rules as an
established feature of our constitutional system. There has thus been
left to the states wide scope for the regulation of matters of local
state concern, even though it in some measure affects the commerce,
provided it does not materially restrict the free flow of commerce
across state lines, or interfere with it in matters with respect to
which uniformity of regulation is of predominant national concern."

State Regulation of Agencies of Interstate Commerce

RAILWAY RATE REGULATION

In one of the Granger Cases decided in 1877 the Court upheld the power
of the legislature of Wisconsin in the absence of legislation by
Congress, to prescribe by law the maximum charges to be made by a
railway company for fare and freight upon the transportation of persons
and property within the State, or taken up outside the State and brought
within it, or taken up inside and carried without it.[795] Ten years
later, in Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Co. _v._ Illinois[796]
this decision was reversed as to persons and property taken up within
the State and transported out of it and as to persons and property
brought into the State from outside. As to these, the Court held that
the regulation of rates and charges must be uniform and that, therefore,
the States had no power to deal with the subject even when Congress had
not acted. The following year Congress passed the Interstate Commerce
Act[797] to fill the gap created by the Wabash decision. Today, the
States still exercise the power to regulate railway rates for the
carriage of persons and property taken up and put down within their
borders