[tacticalogic]

That was the original use, yes. Are you saying that's the only way the Commerce Clause may be used -- as a limit on the states from creating barriers to entry?

Isn't that what the power was granted for, and understood to be for that purpose by the States at the time of ratification?

[robertpaulsen]

"Isn't that what the power was granted for, and understood to be for that purpose by the States at the time of ratification?"

In my opinion, no. If the Commerce Clause was ONLY to be used that way among the states, it would have been written differently. But the states were lumped in with foreign nations and the Indian tribes, and Jefferson prohibited trade with those two groups.

I have no idea what the states understood. No one told Jefferson that the Commerce Clause didn't allow him to prohibit commerce -- not even his Secretary of State, James Madison, who wrote the damn thing.