ABSTRACT
This chapter confines attention to one part of the basic provision—that Congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states. In spite of the apparent simplicity of the words "to regulate commerce among the several States", the Supreme Court had a wide range of choice in deciding what the national government was authorized to do. Thoughtful students differ as to how greatly the present definition of interstate commerce varies from Marshall's concept of commerce that concerns more states than one. "Commerce among the several States", in this view, is the business activity that goes on among people located in the several states of the nation. The chapter presents this view about what some of their words may have meant to the men who wrote the Constitution because Crosskey's extreme position shows the risk one assumes in evaluating the Supreme Court's use of its power.
