The General Survey Act was passed shortly after the Supreme Court decision that discussed interstate commerce.
 While such infrastructure of national scope had been discussed and shown wanting for years, its passage shortly followed the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Gibbons v. Ogden, which first established federal authority over interstate commerce including navigation by river. 
Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation. 
