Document 19
James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell
13 Feb. 1829
Letters 4:14--15
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
And to place that interpretation of this letter in perspective:
1) It was written 40 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
2) It was written as private correspondence, not in a public forum.
3) It is contrary to 40 years of actual legislative history.
4) It is contrary to what is in the actual Constitution.
5) If it was indeed intended "as a negative and preventive provision", then why isn't there any language to that effect in Article I, Section 10?