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At first glance, Wickard seems like a pretty twisted ruling. However, investigation reveals that there's a lot more than meets the eye. The basis for the Wickard is laid out beginning with: At the beginning Chief Justice Marshall described the Federal commerce power with a breadth never yet exceeded (Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194, 195). - Wickard at 120

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Hence the reach of that power extends to those intrastate activities which in a substantial way interfere with or obstruct the exercise of the granted power.' US v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110, 119 , 62 S.Ct. 523, 526. 124 - Wickard @ 124

The Act includes a definition of market and its derivatives so that as related to wheat in addition to its conventional meaning it also means to dispose of by feeding (in any form) to poultry or livestock which, or the products of which, are sold, bartered, or exchanged, or to be so disposed of. Hence, marketing quotas not only embrace all that may be sold without penalty but also what may be consumed on the premises. Wheat produced on excess acreage is designated as available for marketing as so defined and the penalty is imposed thereon. Penalties do not depend upon whether any part of the wheat either within or without the quota is sold or intended to be sold. The sum of this is that the Federal Government fixes a quota including all that the farmer may harvest for sale or for his own farm needs, and declares that wheat produced on excess acreage may neither be disposed of nor used except upon payment of the penalty or except it is stored as required by the Act or delivered to the Secretary of Agriculture. - WICKARD @ 118,119

The Government's concern lest the Act be held to be a regulation of production or consumption rather than of marketing is attributable to a few dicta and decisions of this Court which might be understood to lay it down that activities such as production, manufacturing, and mining are strictly local and, except in special circumstances which are not present here, cannot be regulated under the commerce power because their effects upon interstate commerce are, as matter of law, only indirect. Even today, when this power has been held to have great latitude, there is no decision of this Court that such activities may be regulated where no part of the product is intended for interstate commerce or intermingled with the subjects thereof. We believe that a review of the course of decision under the Commerce Clause will make plain, however, that questions of the power of Congress are not to be decided by reference to any formula which would give controlling force to nomenclature such as production and indirect and foreclose consideration of the actual effects of the activity in question upon interstate commerce. (Wickard @ 119,120)

in Gibbons v. Ogden, Chief Justice Marshall observed that the phrase "among the several States" was "not one which would probably have been selected to indicate the completely interior traffic of a state." It must therefore have been selected to demark "the exclusively internal commerce of a state." While, of course, the phrase "may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more states than one," it is obvious that "[c]ommerce among the states, cannot stop at the exterior boundary line of each state, but may be introduced into the interior." The Chief Justice then succinctly stated the rule, which, though restricted in some periods, continues to govern the interpretation of the clause. "The genius and character of the whole government seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the states generally; but not to those which are completely within a particular state, which do not affect other states, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government."

(see: 9 Wheat @193-198 - beginning with "To what commerce does this power extend?" thru "In support of this argument, it is said, that they possessed it as an inseparable attribute of sovereignty, before the formation of the constitution, and still retain it, except so far as they have surrendered it by that instrument; that this principle results from the nature of the government, and is secured by the tenth amendment; that an affirmative grant of power is not exclusive, unless in its own nature it be such that the continued exercise of it by the former possessor is inconsistent with the grant, and that this is not of that description.")

Recognition of an exclusively internal commerce of a State, or "intrastate commerce" in today's terms, was at times regarded as setting out an area of state concern that Congress was precluded from reaching. While these cases seemingly visualized Congress' power arising only when there was an actual crossing of state boundaries, this view ignored the Marshall's equation of intrastate commerce, which affects other states or with which it is necessary to interfere in order to effectuate congressional power, with those actions that are purely interstate. This equation came back into its own, both with the Court's stress on the current of commerce bringing each element in the current within Congress' regulatory power, with the emphasis on the interrelationships of industrial production to interstate commerce but especially with the emphasis that even minor transactions have an effect on interstate commerce (NLRB v. Fainblatt, 306 U.S. 601 (1939); Kirschbaum v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517 (1942); United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110 (1942); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942); NLRB v. Reliance Fuel Oil Co., 371 U.S. 224 (1963); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183 (1968); McLain v. Real Estate Bd., 444 U.S. 232, 241-243 (1980); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., 452 U.S. 264 (1981).

Moreover, the cumulative effect of many minor transactions with no separate effect on interstate commerce, when they are viewed as a class, may be sufficient to merit congressional regulation:

Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, 129 U.S. 141 (1889); Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427 (1932); In re Bryant, 4 Fed. Cas. 514 (No. 2067) (D. Oreg. 1865). Transportation between two points in the same State, when a part of the route is a loop outside the State, is interstate commerce. Hanley v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 187 U.S. 617 (1903); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Speight, 254 U.S. 17 (1920). But such a deviation cannot be solely for the purpose of evading a tax or regulation in order to be exempt from the State's reach. Greyhound Lines v. Mealey, 334 U.S. 653, 660 (1948); Eichholz v. Public Service Comm., 306 U.S. 268, 274 (1939). Red cap services performed at a transfer point within the State of departure but in conjunction with an interstate trip are reachable. New York, N.H. & N.R. Co. v. Nothnagle, 346 U.S. 128 (1953).

The effect of consumption of homegrown wheat on interstate commerce is due to the fact that it constitutes the most variable factor in the disappearance of the wheat crop. Consumption on the farm where grown appears to vary in an amount greater than 20 per cent of average production. The total amount of wheat consumed as food varies but relatively little, and use as seed is relatively constant. - Wickard @ 127

"The parties have stipulated a summary of the economics of the wheat industry. Commerce among the states in wheat is large and important. Although wheat is raised in every state but one, production in most states is not equal to consumption. Sixteen states on average have had a surplus of wheat above their own requirements for feed, seed, and food. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia, where production has been below consumption, have looked to these surplus-producing states for their supply as well as for wheat for export and carryover.

The wheat industry has been a problem industry for some years. Largely as a result of increased foreign production and import restrictions, annual exports of wheat and flour from the United States during the ten-year period ending in 1940 averaged less than 10 per cent of total production, while during the 1920's they averaged more than 25 per cent. The decline in the export trade has left a large surplus in production which in connection with an abnormally large supply of wheat and other grains in recent years caused congestion in a number of markets; tied up railroad cars; and caused elevators in some instances to turn away grains, and railroads to institute embargoes to prevent further congestion." - Wickard @ 125

In the absence of regulation the price of wheat in the United States would be much affected by world conditions. During 1941 producers who cooperated with the Agricultural Adjustment program received an average price on the farm of about $1.16 a bushel as compared with the world market price of 40 cents a bushel. - Wickard @ 126

"The maintenance by government regulation of a price for wheat undoubtedly can be accomplished as effectively by sustaining or increasing the demand as by limiting the supply. The effect of the statute before us is to restrict the amount which may be produced for market and the extent as well to which one may forestall resort to the market by producing to meet his own needs. That appellee's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the [317 U.S. 111, 128] scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.

It is well established by decisions of this Court that the power to regulate commerce includes the power to regulate the prices at which commodities in that commerce are dealt in and practices affecting such prices. One of the primary purposes of the Act in question was to increase the market price of wheat and to that end to limit the volume thereof that could affect the market. It can hardly be denied that a factor of such volume and variability as home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. This may arise because being in marketable condition such wheat overhangs the market and if induced by rising prices tends to flow into the market and check price increases. But if we assume that it is never marketed, it supplies a need of the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce. The stimulation of commerce is a use of the regulatory function quite as definitely as prohibitions or restrictions thereon. This record leaves us in no doubt that Congress may properly have considered that wheat consumed on the farm where grown if wholly outside the scheme of regulation would have a substantial effect in defeating and obstructing its purpose to stimulate trade therein at increased prices.

It is said, however, that this Act, forcing some farmers into the market to buy what they could provide for themselves, is an unfair promotion of the markets and prices of specializing wheat growers. It is of the essence of regulation that it lays a restraining hand on the selfinterest of the regulated and that advantages from the regulation commonly fall to others. The conflicts of economic interest between the regulated and those who advantage by it are wisely left under our system to resolution by the Congress under its more flexible and responsible legislative process. 29 Such conflicts rarely lend themselves to judicial determination. And with the wisdom, workability, or fairness, of the plan of regulation we have nothing to do." - Wickard @ 127-129

I believe with the foregoing the answer to the question of if Wickard is based on Marshall's opinion in 9 Wheat is a resounding YES!. I don't think its a question of Constitutionality, in that can a Ferrari drive 155 MPH? The more salient question is should Congress regulate commerce to the degree that they are. The biggest problem I have with this are the price-fixing aspects of the commerce regulation. To a free-market economist this would be utter anathema.