New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann decision establishes limits to states’ rights.

The majority of the Supreme Court reaches the decision. But in a dissenting opinion, justice Louis Brandeis champions the role that states can play in the American democratic system, writing, “Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”