In the year 1800 it would scarcely have occurred to founding fathers such as Jefferson, Hamilton, or Madison, to consider that the role of the government was to regulate business. The Constitution, however, assigned responsibility for controlling interstate commerce to the United States Congress The accepted approach to the relationship between government and business for most of American history had been that of laissez-faire,—letting business operate more or less unimpeded by government. People believed government interference with business could have no beneficial effects. Yet as the power of corporations grew, along with their size and numbers of employees, and as sharp competitive business practices rendered the playing field uneven, it became clear that a problem existed. Corporations, especially large ones operated by the so-called robber barons, were responsible for significant amounts of hardship in people's lives.

During the last half of the 19th century it became apparent that large businesses needed to be regulated. As a result, the tradition of laissez-faire was not only impractical but actually dangerous. Business-labor relations often degenerated into bloody contests fought to the death between business managers and the workers who served them. The inevitable result was that the government had to assume the burden of regulating the workplace. It was the interface between government and the American economy that dominated the political life of the Gilded Age, a nexus that in large measure has continued ever since that time.The Interstate Commerce Act As a result of those questionable practices, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1877. The Act stated:

All charges made for any service rendered or to be rendered in the transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid, or in connection therewith, or for the receiving, delivering, storage, or handling of such property, shall be reasonable and just; and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

It further declared that rebates, drawbacks and other under-the-table payments were illegal. Although the Act had to be strengthened by subsequent legislation, the Interstate Commerce Act was the first step in bringing transportation facilities under government oversight.                                                   The Sherman Antitrust Act. The first major break with the concept of laissez-faire came with the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. Businesses were prohibited from using monopolistic practices or acting in restraint of trade and taking unfair advantage of competitors. Like the Interstate Commerce Act, the Sherman Act had to be modified and tightened by later legislation, but the mere passage of the act demonstrated that the age of unbridled corporate excess was coming to an end.

The federal government was reluctant at first to involve itself in direct affairs of business. Slowly, though, it acceded to public demands. For example, in 1887 the House and Senate passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which created the first regulatory commission in U.S. history, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).Three years later, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 became law. It stated that "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal." The ambiguously worded act was hard to enforce, but it at least served notice that the federal government was taking an interest in business activities.
The era of Big Business began when entrepreneurs in search of profits consolidated their businesses into massive corporations, which were so large that they could force out competition and gain control of a market. Control of a market allowed a corporation to set prices for a product at whatever level it wanted. These corporations, and the businessmen who ran them, became exceedingly wealthy and powerful, often at the expense of many poor workers. Some of the most powerful corporations were John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad System, and J.P. Morgan’s banking house. These corporations dominated almost all aspects of their respective industries: by 1879, for example, Rockefeller controlled 90 percent of the country’s oil refining capacity. Much of the public saw the leaders of big business as “robber barons” who exploited workers in order to amass vast for