What then?
Would it be seriously asserted that a steamer owned by New Jersey citizens could not land passengers at a New York port?
Fulton and Livingston strove to protect their monopoly, and the two States were brought to the brink of war.

In the end the courts settled the difficulty by establishing the exclusive control of navigable waters by the Federal Government.
From the day the "Clermont" breasted the tide of the Hudson there was no check in the conquest of the waters by steam.

Up the narrowest rivers, across the most tempestuous bays, along the placid waters of Long Island Sound, coasting along the front yard of the nation from Portland to Savannah the steamboats made their way, tying the young nation indissolubly together.

Curiously enough it was Livingston's monopoly that gave the first impetus to the extension of steam navigation.

A mechanic by the name of Robert L.Stevens, one of the first of a family distinguished in New York and New Jersey, built a steamboat on the Hudson.