What Does it Mean to ‘Regulate Interstate Commerce’?
The Constitution uses words like “welfare” and “regulate” that had specific meanings in the 18th century. For example, with the phrase “provide for the general welfare,” many Americans have been led to believe that the Constitutional framers were establishing the principle of wealth redistribution. This is far from the truth as James Madison made clear in Federalist No. 41.
The only way to determine what words meant in the eighteenth century is to go back to that period of time to see how they were defined and used. Thomas Jefferson put it well in a letter he wrote to William Johnson in 1823:
“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
Harold
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