286
Thomas, J., dissenting
well as federal courts," id., at 12, and "withdr[aws] the power of the states to require a judicial forum for the resolution of claims which the contracting parties agreed to resolve by arbitration," id., at 10. In my view, both aspects of Southland are wrong.
A
Section 2 of the FAA declares that an arbitration clause contained in "a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce" shall be "valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U. S. C. § 2; see also § 1 (defining "commerce," as relevant here, to mean "commerce among the several States or with foreign nations"). On its face, and considered out of context, § 2 draws no apparent distinction between federal courts and state courts. But not until 1959—nearly 35 years after Congress enacted the FAA—did any court suggest that § 2 applied in state courts. See Robert Lawrence Co. v. Devonshire Fabrics, Inc., 271 F. 2d 402, 407 (CA2 1959), cert. dism'd, 364 U. S. 801 (1960). No state court agreed until the 1960's. See, e. g., REA Express v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 447 S. W. 2d 721, 726 (Tex. Civ. App. 1969) (stating that the FAA applies but noting that it had been waived in the case at hand); cf. Rubewa Products Co. v. Watson's Quality Turkey Products, Inc., 242 A. 2d 609, 613 (D. C. 1968) (same). This Court waited until 1984 to conclude, over a strong dissent by Justice O'Connor, that § 2 extends to the States. See Southland, supra, at 10-16.
The explanation for this delay is simple: The statute that Congress enacted actually applies only in federal courts. At the time of the FAA's passage in 1925, laws governing the enforceability of arbitration agreements were generally thought to deal purely with matters of procedure rather than substance, because they were directed solely to the mechanisms for resolving the underlying disputes. As then-Judge Cardozo explained: "Arbitration is a form of procedure whereby differences may be settled. It is not a definition of
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