The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the individual components of the Commerce Clause referred to under specific terms: the Foreign Commerce Clause, the Interstate Commerce Clause and the Indian Commerce Clause.
Articles
The Courts and the New Deal, Part 1, by William L. Anderson, Freedom Daily, Jun 2005
First part of a four-part series examining how Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal affected federal courts and other legal practices; contrasts the thoughts of Blackstone and Bentham
The Commerce Clause of the Constitution has provided that 'hook' for the nationalizing of law. Article I, Section 8, No. 3 says that Congress shall have power 'to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.' One of the things the Framers wished to avoid was for the states to levy tariffs against each other ... Unfortunately, Congress has seized upon the Commerce Clause as a mechanism for declaring nearly everything to be 'interstate commerce.' This provides the hook for creating laws that have usurped the rightful power given to the states ...
Prohibition Hasn't Ended Yet, by Lawrence Reed, The Freeman, Jul 2001
Discusses laws in 30 states that forbid purchases of wine from other states unless done through a state-licensed liquor agent
At the same time its agents snapped up a few bottles of booze (probably spending a small fortune to do so), the [Michigan Liquor Control] Commission has been fighting a lawsuit filed by Michigan residents who claim the law is unfair and violates the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. No matter what happens in Michigan courts, the ban on interstate sales of alcohol may run afoul of events elsewhere ... If the case goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the states may be hard-pressed to defend discriminatory treatment of one another's alcoholic beverages in interstate commerce.
That Mercantilist Commerce Clause, by Sheldon Richman, The Goal Is Freedom, 11 May 2007
Reviews law professor Calvin H. Johnson's "The Panda's Thumb: The Modest and Mercantilist Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause", William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Vol 13, Issue 1, October 2004
The Commerce Clause ... has been used to justify a wide expansion of government power, from antidiscrimination laws to drug prohibition to a ban on guns near schools ... What does "regulate commerce" mean? ... Here is Johnson's summary of his findings:
In the original debates over adoption ..., regulation of commerce was used, almost exclusively, as a cover of words for specific mercantilist proposals related to deep-water shipping and foreign trade ... [Emphasis added.]
He adds, "Neither trade with the Indians nor interstate commerce shows up as a significant issue in the original debates."
Free Trade vs. Protectionism, by Don Boudreaux, 31 Aug 2011
Defines free trade and protectionism, the use of tariffs to implement the latter, and gives Hong Kong and the United States as examples of the benefits of free trade
One of the intended consequences of the 1787 Constitution was to turn the United States into a free-trade zone ... One of the reasons for the United States' enormous economic growth over the past two centuries and high standard of living is that we have total free trade within America ... If protectionism was such a dandy thing, then you'd think each state could make its citizens wealthier by putting up trade restrictions around the states' borders. They don't do that, fortunately, because the Commerce Clause in the Constitution prohibits such trade restrictions.
Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful, by Erwin Chemerinsky, John Eastman, Reason TV, 25 Aug 2010
Professors John Eastman, former Dean, Chapman University Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, UC Irvine School of Law, express contrasting opinions on the Commerce Clause
