# Interstate Commerce Act **Signed:** February 4, 1887 by [[Grover Cleveland]] The first federal statute regulating private industry, enacted after *Wabash Railway v. Illinois* (1886) held that states could not regulate interstate railroad rates — leaving a vacuum only Congress could fill. The Act required rates to be "reasonable and just," banned rebates, pooling, personal and place discrimination, and charging more for a short haul than a long haul over the same line, and required rates to be published. Its more consequential legacy was institutional: it created the **Interstate Commerce Commission**, the first independent federal regulatory agency, with five commissioners serving staggered seven-year terms. That design became the template for the [[FTC]] in 1914 and for every independent commission after it — the model the Supreme Court dismantled in [[Trump v. Slaughter]] (2026). Three years later Congress went further and attacked concentration directly with the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]]. > Stub — fill out. See [[US Antitrust and Monopoly Timeline]] for placement in the arc.