[publiusF27]

I did indeed read Scalia's opinion. It was in line with the lefty majority opinion, and I'm not sure why he wrote separately.

He said that we've been doing it like this, so we're going to keep doing it like this. Stare decisis.

Thomas said we should revisit the substantial effects test and the aggregation principle.

Scalia's decision was based on Wickard vs Filburn. Thomas' was based on things like Federalist 45, as noted in the earlier excerpt.

Scalia didn't look that far back. New Deal judges said that if some private action affects interstate commerce in the aggregate, Congress can regulate it. Scalia said stare decisis.

Citing Scalia doesn't answer my question because Scalia's ruling has nothing to do with Madison's intent. Thomas' dissent does. Unless I'm wrong. Am I wrong? If so, why?

[robertpaulsen]

You keep referring to Madison's intent. 1) You need to define this, with a quote so I know what you're talking about.

Are you referring to "original intent" and are you saying that "original intent" is "sole intent"? In other words, are you saying it was Madison's intent that the Commerce Clause be used exclusively for the purpose for which it was written and no other? 2) I'll need to see proof of that if that is your claim.

The original intent of the meaning of "to regulate" was "to facilitate" commerce. But as early as the late 1800's, "to regulate" included "to ban". Are you saying that Congress cannot ban commerce because Madison didn't originally write the Commerce Clause to ban commerce, but to facilitate commerce?

In 1824, in Gibbons v Ogden, Chief Justice (and Founding Father) John Marshall stated, "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."

Seems to me he's saying that IF completely intrastate activity affects other states, Congress may interfere.

James Madison was still alive in 1824. Why didn't he comment on this? Why didn't he say, "Hey! That wasn't my intent! My intent was interstate commerce only!"