Commerce Clause

“ Commerce Clause is inherently unpredictable-unpredictable not just because we have applied its standards poorly or inconsistently, but because it requires us and the lower courts to accommodate, like a legislature, the inevitably shifting variables of a national economy. ”

“ The importance of the commerce clause to the Union of course is very great. But it also is important to prevent that clause being used to deprive the States of their lifeblood by a strained interpretation of facts. ”

“ Benefits to those engaged in commerce, however, are incidental to the purpose of the Commerce Clause; they are but evidence of its sound application. That the Commerce Clause benefits individual traders or consumers does not satisfy the majority's test that a provision must have been intended for the benefit of a particular plaintiff ”

“ Thus, the considerations governing its interpretation marked out for it a special path in the stream of constitutional adjudication-a course which diverged in many respects from the history of the Commerce Clause: that broad grant of power designed primarily to assure national control over commercial trade among the States. ”

“ For a hundred years it has been accepted constitutional doctrine that the commerce clause, without the aid of Congressional legislation, thus affords some protection from state legislation inimical to the national commerce, and that in such cases, where Congress has not acted, this Court, and not the state legislature, is under the commerce clause the final arbiter of the competing demands of state and national interests. ”

“ The power of Congress, under the commerce clause to prohibit such restraints and monopolies has not been denied. It will be remembered that power to regulate commerce is not power to regulate manufactures. ”

“ Accordingly, when a corporation goes into a state other than that of its origin to collect, according to the usual or prevailing methods, the amount which has become due in transactions in interstate commerce, the state cannot, consistently with the limitation arising from the commerce clause, obstruct the attainment of that purpose. ”

“ The commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States does not take away from the several states the right to authorize the formation of corporations, define their business, fix the amount of their capital or purchasing power, and regulate the issue, sale, and ownership of their capital stock. ”

“ If the commerce clause were construed to reach all enterprises and transactions which could be said to have an indirect effect upon interstate commerce, the federal authority would embrace practically all the activities of the people, and the authority of the state over its domestic concerns would exist only by sufferance of the federal government. ”

“ If the Contracts Clause, an express limitation upon States' ability to impair the contractual rights of citizens, does not secure rights within the meaning of § 1983, it assuredly demands a great leap for the majority to conclude that the Commerce Clause secures the rights of persons. The Commerce Clause is, if anything, a less obvious source of rights for purposes of § 1983, as its text only implies a limitation upon state power. ”

“ Ordinarily courts do not construe words used in the Constitution so as to give them a meaning more narrow than one which they had in the common parlance of the times in which the Constitution was written. To hold that the word 'commerce' as used in the Commerce Clause does not include a business such as insurance would do just that. Whatever other meanings 'commerce' may have included in 1787, the dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other books of the period show that it included trade: businesses in which persons bought and sold, bargained and contracted. ”

“ That the mere formation of a contract between persons in different states is not within the protection of the commerce clause, at least in the absence of Congressional action, unless the performance is within its protection, is a proposition no longer open to question. ”

“ By contrast, the Commerce Clause of its own force imposes limitations on state regulation of commerce and is the source of a right of action in those injured by regulations that exceed such limitations. [8]
Respondents also argue that the protection from interference with trade conferred by the Commerce Clause cannot be a "right" because it is subject to qualification or elimination by Congress. Brief for Respondents 21. That argument proves too much, however, because federal statutory rights may also be altered or eliminated by Congress. ”

“ This Court has many times pointed out that movements of persons across state boundaries are a part of interestate commerce, subject to the regulation and entitled to the protection of the national government under the commerce clause. ”

“ Once an economic measure of the reach of the power granted to Congress in the Commerce Clause is accepted, questions of federal power cannot be decided simply by finding the activity in question to be 'production' nor can consideration of its economic effects be foreclosed by calling them 'indirect.' The present Chief Justice has said in summary of the present state of the law: 'The commerce power is not confined in its exercise to the regulation of commerce among the states. ”

“ We do not and apparently cannot enunciate any legal criteria by which those who engage in foreign commerce can predict which classification we will impose upon any particular operation and we lay down no rule other than our passing impression to guide ourselves or our successors. All is left to case-by-case conjecture. The commerce clause was intended to promote commerce rather than litigation. ”

“ A corporation of one state may go into another, without obtaining the leave or license of the latter, for all the legitimate purposes of such commerce; and any statute of the latter state which obstructs or lays a burden on the exercise of this privilege is void under the commerce clause. ”

“ One challenging the validity of a state enactment on the ground that it is repugnant to the commerce clause is not necessarily bound by the legislative declarations of purpose. It is open to him to show that in their practical operation its provisions directly burden or destroy interstate commerce. ”

“ None of this matters, plaintiffs claim. However broad Congress's commerce
power may be, it is not unlimited, and one limit on that power is that it applies only to
individuals already engaged in commerce. The Clause permits the legislature to
“regulate” commerce, not to create it. Put another way, it empowers Congress to
regulate economic “activities” and “actions,” not inaction—not in other words
individuals who have never entered a given market and who prize that most American
of freedoms: to be left alone. ”

“ The principle of the act, unqualified by the limiting clause in question, has been operative in all modern civilized nations, possessing a national commerce, whenever the policy of such nations has been finally adapted to the exigencies of that commerce. ”

“ Nor is there any such constitutional obligation upon the states, in the absence of legislation by Congress, to legislate uniformly as to duties, imposts, or excises, (as is submitted by brief of plaintiff in error.) III. Nor to the first and the second clause of the 10th section, art. 1. (No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, &c., or of tonnage.)
If the law in question does regulate commerce at all, it is contended, that it does so by the means specified in these clauses. ”

“ Similarly, it was felt that without this exemption clause, the employees of a local merchant who purchased his goods from outside his state but retailed them all within his estate to ultimate consumers across his counter, might, nevertheless, technically be covered by the Act as being actually 'in (interstate) commerce' because of his purchases, although his sales all might be at 'retail' and beyond the end of the 'flow of goods in commerce.' 83 Cong.Rec. ”

“ A power to regulate trade is a power to make all needful rules and regulations concerning trade. Why may it not, then, include that of erecting a trading company, as well as in other cases to erect a government?
"It is remarkable, that the state conventions, who have proposed amendments in relation to this point, have most, if not all of them, expressed themselves nearly thus: Congress shall not grant monopolies, nor erect any company with exclusive advantages of commerce! ”

“ It its main purpose be to establish a regulation applicable to all trade, to commerce at all points, especially if it be apparent that it is designed to govern the commerce wholly between citizens of the same State, it is obviously the exercise of a power not confided to Congress. ”

“ Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. ed. 23, the power was declared to be complete in itself, and to acknowledge no limitations other than are prescribed by the Constitution. Under this grant of power to Congress that body, in our judgment, may enact such legislation as shall declare void and prohibit the performance of any contract between individuals or corporations where the natural and direct effect of such a contract will be, when carried out, to directly, and not as a mere incident to other and innocent purposes, regulate to any substantial extent interstate commerce. ”

“ Realities must dominate the judgment. The mere fact that the parties to an agreement eliminate competition between themselves is not enough to condemn it. 'The legality of an agreement or regulation cannot be determined by so simple a test, as whether it restrains competition. Every agreement concerning trade, every regulation of trade, restrains.' Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, supra. The familiar illustrations of partnerships, and enterprises fairly integrated in the interest of the promotion of commerce, at once occur. ”

“ Again, half a dozen enactments, other than the National Labor Relations Act are sufficient to illustrate that when it wants to bring aspects of commerce within the full sweep of its constitutional authority, it manifests its purpose by regulating not only 'commerce' but also matters which 'affect', 'interrupt', or 'promote' interstate commerce. ”

“ Accordingly, such only are the regulations to be found in the laws of the United States; whose objects are to give encouragement to the enterprise of our own merchants, and to advance our navigation and manufactures.
And it is in reference to these general relations of commerce, that an establishment which furnishes facilities to circulation, and a convenient medium of exchange and alienation, is to be regarded as a regulation of trade. ”

“ There is no difficulty in the execution of this contract, because there is not a merchant who does not know, or may not know, the duty paid by every nation on every article. This stipulation leaves each party at liberty to regulate their own commerce by general rules; while it secures the other from partial and oppressive discriminations. ”

“ To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every state, as to its external. ”

“ Were every law on the subject of commerce repealed tomorrow, all commerce would be lawful, and, in practice, merchants never inquire what is permitted, but what is forbidden commerce. Of all the endless variety of branches of foreign commerce now carried on to every quarter of the world, I know of no one that is permitted by act of Congress any otherwise than by not being forbidden. No statute of the United States that I know of was ever passed to permit a commerce unless in consequence of its having been prohibited by some previous statute. ”