Introduction: The Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company as an Institutional Entrepreneur

In 1886, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the state of Mississippi to regulate railroad rates, but added that the state’s right do so was not unlimited.1 In 1894, the Court upheld a decision by a lower court that overturned rates set by the Texas Railroad Commission.2 The opinion by Justice Brewer described the criteria that a court might take into consideration in deciding on the reasonableness of rates. Both cases were significant steps along the path to establishing judicial review.3 In 1895, the Court ruled that the federal income tax, enacted the previous year, was unconstitutional.4 The opinion became one of the most criticized in American legal history. A single firm, Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co., connects all of these well-known cases: Stone v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co., Reagan v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co., and Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co.