I'm not embarrassed at all. They weren't regulating intrastate commerce, they were regulating the actions of the carriers, and any involvement of intrastate commerce was incicental and irrelevant to the outcome.
"It is for Congress to supply the needed correction where the relation between intrastate and interstate rates presents the evil to be corrected, and this it may do completely, by reason of its control over the interstate carrier in all matters having such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that it is necessary or appropriate to exercise the control for the effective government of that commerce."
What was relevant was that they were interstate carriers. Once that was established, the intrastate commerce issue was irrelevant. No carrier, no reason of control.
See what I mean? You think that's the only way Congress can regulate.
"What was relevant was that they were interstate carriers."
I thought you were against expanding the Commerce Clause and here you end up defending that expansion. Carriers are not commerce. The Commerce Clause says "to regulate commerce", yet you defend the regulation of carriers. My, my, my. Be still my heart.
But, for once you're right. The courts have ruled that Congress may regulate the interstate carriers because, duh, interstate carriers have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Shreveport came along and said that Congress may also regulate the carrier's intrastate activities -- not because they're carriers -- but because the carrier's intrastate activities have "such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce".
The Shreveport court tied everything to interstate commerce, not the fact that they were carriers. Otherwise the court would have simply ruled that, since Congress has chosen to regulate the carriers, they may regulate all operations of the carriers irregardless of the effect on commerce. They didn't.