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25 Minn. L. Rev. 432 (1940-1941)
The Commerce Clause in the Constitutional Convention and in Contemporary Comment

handle is hein.journals/mnlr25 and id is 442 raw text is: MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW THE COMMERCE CLAUSE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND IN CONTEMPORARY COMMENT By ALBERT S. ABEL* T HIS paper constitutes one instalment of an examination into the historical meaning of the commerce clause of the Ameri- can constitution. Specifically it seeks by a comprehensive and detailed sifting of the materials from the years 1787 and 1788 to discover what import was originally attributed to the clause by contemporaries actively engaged in the processes of formulation or ratification. There is no intention to suggest that current com- merce clause construction, in so far as it may depart from that initially indicated, is to be condemned on that account. In the evaluation of constitutional doctrine, there are other and more important factors to be considered than the intention of the framers. Yet the latter has its own interest, both intrinsically and as a means of appraising accurately the validity or spurious- ness of the claims to the support of that revered authority, which are so often used as substitutes for argument. The writer of this paper is interested only in making it clear what that intention was, so far as regards the commerce clause; the reader is free to draw whatever conclusions he pleases therefrom, or none at all if that suits him better. THE SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE GRANTED POWER RUNNING THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN STATE AND NATIONAL AUTHORITY GENERALLY. It seems to have been common ground that the general government as constituted-or reconstituted-by the convention was to possess a power of regulating commerce. It was by no means so universally agreed that there should be a clause granting to it the power to regulate commerce. That depended on the larger preliminary question of the place of Con- gress and of the general government in the revised political system. Were the states to be reduced substantially to the position of municipal corporations confined to the area of local self-govern- ment, and Congress invested with a general legislative power which would require little or nothing in the way of specification? *Associate Professor of Law, West Virginia University.

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