Commerce Clause
Under Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution is a section known as the Commerce Clause. Now, the meaning of the commerce clause couldn't be much more clear--which is precisely why the Supreme Court was, for a long time, able to do what it was created to do: interpret the clause in such a way so that Congress could not make any law that allowed them to rape the commerce clause for their own power. Nevertheless, like just about every part of our Constitution by the 21st century, the ever-more-Liberal Congress, with the help of some Liberal Presidents, have succeeded in largely inventing a new meaning for the commerce clause, a meaning which is not there in the Constitution and is nowhere to be found in the Federalist Papers nor within any interpersonal correspondences between the Founders.
As with nearly all things Liberal, the meaning of the commerce clause that has arisen since the Progressive Era (that is, since ca. 1930) is something perversely absurd. It has nothing to do with even the intention of the commerce clause in the Constitution.
All that Article I, Section 8, paragraph three says is that the federal Congress has the authority to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the [Native American] tribes." And what "commerce" is was the minds of the Founders--and what it still is in the mind of any sane person of at least mediocre intelligence--is shipping for the purpose of trade, as historian Randy E. Barnett has lucidly demonstrated for all of the Regressive idiots of the 21st century.
So, the commerce clause is only there to prevent states from erecting huge trade barriers between themselves and possibly between themselves and the Native American nations. There is also room there to allow Congress to regulate international trade between the United States and foreign nations, which is a very good idea as long as Congress does not go protectionist...but of course, it does do that at times, but even though it's stupid it's still legally permissible.
The reason the commerce clause was put in to the Constitution was precisely because of bad experiences under the weak Articles of Confederation, under which no such clause existed and state legislatures aggressively sought to prevent produced goods--and money--from leaving their states, and other nonsense. In short, the states in general, with regards to commerce, were acting just like Great Britain, enacting similar bone-headed policies like the very ones excoriated by Adam Smith. It's also pretty obvious that you could have a mess on your hands real soon if each state legislature dreams up its own ideas of how commercial traffic should flow into and out of itself.
The meaning of the commerce clause is, thus, very straightforward. The federal Congress has the power to make sure that trade between the variously named entities is facilitated and kept as simple and fair as humanly possible. Trade within a state was just as much off limits to Congress as, say, trade within Germany.
Furthermore, interstate and international trade are just that: trade. Congress has zero Constitutional power over the production of goods and services; manufacturing; or mining.
But of course, as with all things, Congress was naturally inclined to overreach and seek more power for itself. The Supreme Court, however, didn't let that happen for a long time. Then with the turn of the 20th century, the cracks and fissures started to show a little. In Swift v. United States (1905), the Supreme Court said that Congress could regulate the activities of meat packers--even though everything they did was localized. Shipping meat across state lines was not directly related to packing it. Things would get more extreme in 1922 when the Court ruled in Stafford v. Wallace (1922) that the Congressional Packers and Stockyards Act, which regulated the Chicago meatpacking industry's stockyards as if they were (in the words of Chief Justice Taft) "great national public utilities" was Constitutional.
It should come as no surprise that it was under FDR that Congress really became a draconian monster with respect to the commerce clause. It came into this power at last in 1942 in Wickard vs. Filburn, argued before the Supreme Court. Now, Mr. Wickard was simply a small farmer in Ohio who chose to plant an additional 12 acres of his own property with wheat, a feat of personal independence which went over and above the quota set by the Department of Agriculture (which should not even exist, of course).Wickard never did any commerce with this wheat: he had grown it only for himself and his family. Congress had slapped him with a fine, which he was contesting. He lost the case before the Court--because, they reasoned, ifWickard had not grown that extra wheat, he would have been forced to buy it, and so he was directly harming some other poor farming souls (whoever they were) and if such activities were allowed to go on agricultural commerce could become negatively affected all across the U.S.
This 1942 ruling on the meaning of the commerce clause set the absurd precedent we have today: that Congress is allowed to pass legislation to force individuals to buy any product or service as long as it can show that if they don't do so they will affect the economy! Only the Left could ever dream up such sheer, nightmarish stupidity.
It is bad enough that Congress has long been permitted to regulate production, but at least it has always only been allowed to regulate that, as well as trade, where it involves people who have voluntarily entered into a commercial activity. Now, Congress thinks it can force people to buy things just because those people exist--which is exactly what this imbecilic, sick, twisted government-run "health care" rubbish is all about. It's just a Theatre of the Absurd commerce clause drama.
commerce clause