The trend began with the Indiana Supreme Court, which upheld a state statute barring interracial marriage in the 1871 case of State v. Gibson. The court insisted that new federal measures had no bearing on a state’s power to regulate contracts such as marriage. Marriage was “essential to the peace, happiness, and well-being of society,” the court said, and the state’s authority to regulate it continued unimpeded. State and federal courts increasingly followed Indiana’s lead, holding that the police powers of the states included the authority to regulate marriage as they saw fit.
