[20] It is to be noted that the demand of the warehousemen on the second point was not for a judicial _review_ of the reasonableness of a rate fixed by the legislature, but a total _denial_ of the _power_ of a _legislature_ to act in the matter. The question of the propriety of a judicial review of the reasonableness of the rates in question was not raised in the pleadings. It was not difficult, therefore, for judges in subsequent cases in which the question of judicial review was squarely raised to explain away as mere _dictum_ this solemn statement by Chief Justice Waite to the effect that the power of the legislature to regulate being conceded, the determination of the legislature was binding on the courts and not subject to review. [21] Except for two unimportant cases decided in the lower courts. [22] It should be noted that the Supreme Court not only undertook to pass upon the reasonableness of such rates as the states were permitted to make, but also added in 1886 that no state could regulate the rates on goods transported within its borders, when such goods were in transit to or from a point in another state. Such regulation was held in the Wabash, etc., Railway Company _v._ Illinois (118 U. S. 557) to be an interference with interstate commerce which was subject to control by Congress only. [23] Below, p. 287. CHAPTER IV PARTIES AND PARTY ISSUES, 1877-1896 It was a long time before the conditions created by the great economic revolution were squarely reflected in political literature and party programs. Indeed, they were but vaguely comprehended by the generation of statesmen who had been brought up in the days of the stagecoach and the water mill. It is true that the inevitable drift of capitalism in the United States might have been foreseen by turning to Europe, particularly to England, where a similar economic revolution had produced clearly ascertainable results; but American politicians believed, or at least contended, that the United States lived under a special economic dispensation and that the grave social problems which had menaced Europe for more than a generation when the Civil War broke out could never arise on American soil.