Cite as: 513 U. S. 265 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
about) the interstate aspects of the earlier contract? The first interpretation, requiring only that the "transaction" in fact involve interstate commerce, avoids this anomaly, as it avoids the other anomalous effects growing out of the "contemplation of the parties" test.
Second, the statute's language permits the "commerce in fact" interpretation. That interpretation, we concede, leaves little work for the word "evidencing" (in the phrase "a contract evidencing a transaction") to perform, for every contract evidences some transaction. But, perhaps Congress did not want that word to perform much work. The Act's history, to the extent informative, indicates that the Act's supporters saw the Act as part of an effort to make arbitration agreements universally enforceable. They wanted to "get a Federal law" that would "cover" areas where the Constitution authorized Congress to legislate, namely, "interstate and foreign commerce and admiralty." Joint Hearings 16 (testimony of Julius H. Cohen). They urged Congress to model the Act after a New York statute that made enforceable a written arbitration provision "in a written contract," Act of Apr. 19, 1920, ch. 275, § 2, 1920 N. Y. Laws 803, 804. Hearing on S. 4213 and S. 4214 before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., 2 (1923) (testimony of Charles L. Bern-heimer). Early drafts made enforceable a written arbitration provision "in any contract or maritime transaction or transaction involving commerce." S. 4214, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., § 2 (1922) (emphasis added); S. 1005, 68th Cong., 1st Sess. (1923); H. R. 646, 68th Cong., 1st Sess. (1924). Members of Congress, looking at that phrase, might have thought the words "any contract" standing alone went beyond Congress' constitutional authority. And, if so, they might have simply connected those words with the later words "transaction involving commerce," thereby creating the phrase that became law. Nothing in the Act's history suggests any other, more limiting, task for the language.
279
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007