The Commerce Clause is a phrase in Article I, Section 8 of the the United States Constitution. It specifies that the United States Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce" with other nations, among the states and with Indian tribes. "Commerce" originally meant and in common usage still means trade, that is, exchange of goods and services. However, particularly since the New Deal, the Commerce Clause has been increasingly used to constrain business and economic activities even when those take place within a single state.
Articles
The Antifederalists Were Right, by Gary Galles, Mises.org, 27 Sep 2006
Recalls the warnings of the Antifederalists, particularly the writings of "Brutus" (pseudonym for Robert Yates) and his prediction of "judicial tyranny"
One could quibble with the mechanisms the Antifederalists predicted would lead to constitutional tyranny. For instance, they did not foresee that the Commerce Clause would come to be called "the everything clause" in law schools, used by centralizers to justify almost any conceivable federal intervention. The 20th-century distortion of the clause's original meaning was so great even the vigilant Antifederalists could never have imagined the government getting away with it.
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 ... 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 W. 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 ... 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
Comments on 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, LearnLiberty.org, 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.
[Narrator] The Commerce Clause. It's 16 words and two commas. They're not even hard words. Most people can figure out what it means. Sadly, Congress is not most people ... What was originally intended to be a restriction on states has been rewritten into a grant of virtually unlimited powers to Congress. How did we get here?
The Antifederalists Were Right, by Gary Galles, Mises.org, 27 Sep 2006