The Supreme Court blocked federal child-labor law until the New Deal.

Evidence

It was a frustrating situation. The southern states made a mockery of the labor laws of northern states, in much the same way that Nevada made a mockery of New York’s divorce laws. The remedy had to be on a national level, that is, through federal law. Congress obliged. It passed a statute in 1916 that prohibited the interstate shipment of goods made in factories that used child labor. But a conservative Supreme Court, in Hammer v. Dagenhart, declared the law invalid. Congress, said the Court, had no power to pass such a law. The case set off a storm of protest. There were attempts to get around Hammer v. Dagenhart through the taxing power or through constitutional amendment. For one reason or another, these measures failed. Effective control of child labor, on a national scale, was achieved only during the New Deal period, in the 1930s. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 675

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: States’ rights functions as a political slogan, not a settled ideology. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 699