it’s been a long time, but I saw a poster made during the depression, from the government. Warning not to hoarde food. I haven’t been able to find it.
It was a deflationary period and they killed hogs and destroyed food (that people could have eaten) so the prices wouldn’t go down too much and bankrupt the producers, yet they too a farmer up to SCOTUS and won, that he couldn’t grow grain just to feed his own animals.
Wickard v. Filburn: The Supreme Court Case That Gave the Federal Government Nearly Unlimited Power
The Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers, which means the federal government is only authorized to do things that are specifically listed in the Constitution.
But who ended up being tasked with deciding what Article One, Section Eight actually meant? Herein lies the wrinkle that enables all manner of constitutional mischief in the United States. The institution that ended up deciding what the federal government is empowered to do is itself a branch of the federal government. And it should come as no surprise that when push comes to shove, the Supreme Court routinely finds in favor of empowering the federal government.
This sort of mischief flowered fully in the decade following ratification of the 21st Amendment. In 1942, the Supreme Court decided a case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which farmer Roscoe Filburn ran afoul of a federal law that limited how much wheat he was allowed to grow.
Regulating The Wheat Market
A careful reader might, and should, ask where the federal government’s right to legislate the wheat market is to be found—because the word “wheat” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Be that as it may, the federal government’s aim was clear enough. It was to keep the price of wheat high enough for farmers to remain profitable. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 put an upper limit on how much wheat farmers were allowed to grow, which would serve to keep prices high by limiting supply.
Roscoe Filburn had grown 12 more acres of wheat than the law allowed. But not only did he not sell the excess wheat outside of his home state, but he also didn’t sell it at all. He used the wheat from those 12 acres to feed his cattle.
very clearly not engaging in commerce, let alone interstate commerce, yet the Supreme Court found (unanimously) that because Congress had the authority to regulate interstate commerce, Congress also had the authority to prohibit Congress also had the authority to prohibit Filburn from growing those 12 acres of wheat for his own use. The Supreme Court’s “reasoning”?
Had Filburn not fed his cattle that excess wheat, he would have been forced to purchase wheat on the open market. And even if he purchased wheat that was grown within his home state, doing so would have made less wheat available within his home state for other wheat buyers. Consequently, some wheat buyers within his home state would then have had to buy wheat from outside the state. Therefore, Filburn’s non-commercial activity was, according to the Supreme Court.
We have progressed so far down the path of reinterpreting the Constitution as a document that empowers government, rather than one that limits it, that unelected bureaucrats today exercise power that the Constitution even withholds from Congress. This is troubling even when those bureaucrats are benevolent, altruistic, informed, and intelligent. But when they aren’t, it is extremely dangerous.
People have been told that FDR got the country out of depression. If he would have left the recession alone we would have gotten out of it much faster. Instead he stole the citizens gold, and instituted every social program he could think of, even tried to pack the Supreme Court.
“ when push comes to shove, the Supreme Court routinely finds in favor of empowering the federal government.”
Looks like our Supremes didn’t get the note this time around. I’m sure Roberts is pretty unhappy with them.
I’ve heard the same thing about Roosevelt. And we were in a depression up until the second world war, in the 40s! That’s a long time. Obviously what he did prolonged it.