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To: pgyanke
(FDR’s New Deal and Richard Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls are two recent examples).

IMHO, the essential problem we face is the New Deal interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

From Joseph Stories Commentaries on the Constitution (more here)

"The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments."

The New Deal's "substantial effects" doctrine has done precisely what Story warned against at the outset.

19 posted on 01/25/2008 9:07:11 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic

That’s great! I anticipate being called to carpet for mentioning the “hallowed” New Deal... thanks for the ammunition!


21 posted on 01/25/2008 9:12:30 AM PST by pgyanke ("Huntered"--The act of being ignored by media and party to prevent name recognition)
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