In the end, Northern Securities was an important victory for Roosevelt and his premise that the trusts must obey the state, for he had challenged and humbled a man, J. P. Morgan, who had once seemed beyond the reach of any law, a man whom nations might obey rather than order. As Roosevelt later reflected, “it was imperative to teach the masters of the biggest corporations in the land that they were not, and would not be permitted to regard themselves as, above the law.”
