http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1848/ U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, presented by The Oyez Project (www.oyez.org) en-us <p>Did the Court have the constitutional authority to declare which group constituted the official government of Rhode Island?</p><p>The Court held that "the power of determining that a state government has been lawfully established" did not belong to federal courts, and that it was not the function of such courts to prescribe the qualifications for voting in the States. The Court held that the creation of republican forms of government and the control of domestic violence were matters of an essentially political nature committed by the Constitution to the other branches of government. Hence, the Court should defer to Congress and the President when confronted with such issues.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1848/1848_2/ <p>Does the taking of the bridge violate the Impairment of Contracts prohibition of Article I Section 10 of the Constitution?</p><p>This was not a contract impairment prohibited by the Constitution. The states' eminent domain power was fundamental and had been exercised repeatedly by the states. States could take bridge franchises like any other property provided the states offered just compensation. This was the first Supreme Court case to deal with the states' power of eminent domain.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1848/1848_0/