Got it.
Glad you're finally in line with the dictionary definition and FR usage (cf. Roe v Wade, Obamacare). Shame it took so long.
Does that mean we can ignore the law?
No. As I've explained more than once now, "What we do about unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings is another question."
The entire quotation makes clear that the purpose of the Commerce Clause is to prevent state-versus-state battles
Yes, but not necessarily by Congress' intervention. For decades, states resolved issues between themselves in a lower federal court using the "dormant" commerce clause -- Congress can't get involved in every petty dispute between states.
"Thus, in a dormant Commerce Clause case, a court is initially concerned with whether the law facially discriminates against out-of-state actors or has the effect of favoring in-state economic interests over out-of-state interests."
This would apply perfectly to the Shreveport Rate Cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court only got involved in this case because Congress was actively regulating interstate rates. So the court ruled they could also regulate intrastate rates.
Fascinating bit of legal history. But I don't see its relevance to the point that the Shreveport Rate Cases ruling asserts the authority of Congress only with specific reference to shipping rates - and that its only broader language is to limit the ends for which that authority is meant to be used, namely preventing state-versus-state battles (which does not include all nonuniformity among states):
"Interstate trade was not left to be destroyed or impeded by the rivalries of local government. The purpose was to make impossible the recurrence of the evils which had overwhelmed the Confederation, and to provide the necessary basis of national unity by insuring 'uniformity of regulation against conflicting and discriminating state legislation.'" (emphasis added)
In line? Hardly. I'm simply saying I understand your definition of unconstitutional.
I don't agree with it, since I don't believe the Founders had access to a modern dictionary and "FR usage" -- whatever that is. But hey. Let's all be thankful "true" constitutionality isn't determined by "DU usage", huh?
"What we do about unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings is another question."
As we go further down the rabbit hole ...
What happened to "No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it"? If you're going to obey an unconstitutional law, then what's your point?
"Interstate trade was not left to be destroyed or impeded by the rivalries of local government. The purpose was to make impossible the recurrence of the evils which had overwhelmed the Confederation, and to provide the necessary basis of national unity by insuring 'uniformity of regulation against conflicting and discriminating state legislation.'" (emphasis added)"
You keep citing that. The court was simply making a general point. Try addressing this instead:
"The fact that carriers are instruments of intrastate commerce, as well as of interstate commerce, does not derogate from the complete and paramount authority of Congress over the latter, or preclude the Federal power from being exerted to prevent the intrastate operations of such carriers from being made a means of injury to that which has been confided to Federal care. Wherever the interstate and intrastate transactions of carriers* are so related that the government of the one involves the control of the other, it is Congress, and not the state, that is entitled to prescribe the final and dominant rule, for otherwise Congress would be denied the exercise of its constitutional authority, and the state, and not the nation, would be supreme within the national field."
* Substitute "wheat" or "drugs" or "air traffic" for "carriers" and you have your U.S. Supreme Court precedent.