Intrastate Commerce

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INTRASTATE COMMERCE

The constitutional convention of 1787, by listing among Congress's enumerated powers the power to regulate commerce "among the several states" as well as with Indian tribes and foreign countries, appeared to reserve for regulation by each state its own domestic commerce. Indeed, notwithstanding Chief Justice john marshall's dictum that commerce does not stop at the state line but penetrates into the interior, for most of American constitutional history Congress respected and the Supreme Court enforced that division of power over commerce. After wickard v. filburn (1938), the distinction between intrastate and interstate commerce effectively ceased to have any significance in constitutional law.

David Gordon
(1986)

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