Federal Commerce Power and Economic Regulation

AuthorJack Fruchtman
ProfessionProfessor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Law and American Civilization at Towson University, Maryland
Pages201-208
American Constitutional History: A Brief Introduction, First Edition. Jack Fruchtman.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
14
Federal Commerce Power and
Economic Regulation
The Constitution in Article I, Section8, bestows on Congress the
power “to regulate commerce among the states.” The courts have
long interpreted this phrase to mean that Congress may set the rules
and regulations whenever goods and services pass through more
than one state. In 1824, in the first major commerce clause case
before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall explained that
Congress’s interstate commerce power is “complete,” “unlimited,”
and “plenary … as absolutely as it would be in a single government.”
In other words, he distinguished the interstate from intrastate
movement of goods. The United States controlled the former, the
states the latter. Over 100 years later, another chief justice, Charles
Evans Hughes, set out the modern version of Marshall’s ideas when
he noted that Congress’s interstate commerce power extended only
to activities that had “a substantial relation to interstate commerce.”
On the basis of this principle, Congress has passed legislation
affecting the manufacturing, production, and transportation of
goods and services passing through interstate commerce. Moreover,
the clause has also become the foundation for the passage of all civil
rights bills for more than 50 years.

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