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8 held that Congress under any of its enumerated powers may regulate the very nature of those relations or dictate their creation, dissolution, or modification. Nor could we and remain faithful to our founding. “No one denies that the States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, possessed full power over” ordinary family relations; and “the Constitution delegated no authority to the Government of the United States” in this area. Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U. S. 562, 575 (1906). It is a “most important aspect of our federalism” that “the domestic relations of husband and wife”—and parent and child—are “matters reserved to the States and do not belong to the United States.” Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U. S. 226, 233 (1945) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

As part of that reserved power, state courts have resolved child custody matters arising among state citizens since the earliest days of the Nation. See, e.g., Nickols v. Giles, 2 Root 461, 461–462 (Conn. Super. Ct. 1796) (declining to remove daughter from mother’s care); Wright v. Wright, 2 Mass. 109, 110–111 (1806) (awarding custody of child to mother following divorce); Commonwealth v. Nutt, 1 Browne 143, 145 (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas 1810) (assigning custody of child to her sister). Then, as now, state courts’ overriding concern was the best interests of the children. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Addicks, 5 Binn. 520, 521 (Pa. 1813) (court’s “anxiety is principally directed” to the child’s welfare); In re Waldron, 13 Johns. Cas. 418, 421 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1816) (court is “principally to be directed” by “the benefit and the welfare” of the child). By the mid-19th century, States had begun enacting statutory adoption schemes, enforceable through state courts, “to provide for the welfare of dependent children,” starting with Massachusetts in 1851. S. Presser, The Historical Background of the American Law of Adoption, 11 J. Fam. L. 443, 453, 465 (1971) (Presser); 1851 Mass. Acts ch. 324. Over the next 25 years, 23 other States followed suit. Presser 465–466, and nn. 111, 112. As