[Rockingham]

Thanks. I was utterly unaware that "The Founders' Constitution" is now available online and am delighted to see that it is so. I was not able to find anything useful to the meaning of "several states" there, but I found an online version of Kent's that shows as a chapter heading "Of Constitutional Restrictions on the Powers of the Several States" (http://www.constitution.org/jk/jk_000.htm). To me, that makes sense only if several means not "interstate" or "between the states" but as reference to the states as a whole, which I what I took Madison's meaning to be.

[Ken H]

To me, that makes sense only if several means not "interstate" or "between the states" but as reference to the states as a whole, which I what I took Madison's meaning to be.

Marshall in Gibbons:

The subject to which the power is next applied, is to commerce "among the several States."[ ]Comprehensive as the word "among" is, it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one.

[inquest]

I was not able to find anything useful to the meaning of "several states" there, but I found an online version of Kent's that shows as a chapter heading "Of Constitutional Restrictions on the Powers of the Several States"

And as you can see from the link to that chapter, the very first sentence is:

"WE proceed to consider the extent and effect of certain constitutional restrictions on the authority of the separate states."