What is Commerce?

One of the powers of Congress, listed in Art. 1, Sec. 8 of the Constitution, is the power to regulate commerce among the several states. Like a lot of big constitutional issues, the terms of debate for understanding the Commerce Clause were set by Chief Justice John Marshall in a decision from the early nineteenth century. In Gibbon v. Ogden (1824), Marshall argued that we should interpret the power to regulate commerce broadly, in light of the purpose of the Constitution to create a national government independent of the states and with powers adequate to achieve the great objects of national power.

Om Podcasten

The 1787 Project is the podcast version of the lectures for Professor Justin Dyer's socially-distanced class on the U.S. Constitution at the University of Missouri. Running from August 2020 - May 2021, the course is about how the U.S. Constitution of 1787 frames the way we organize our life together as a political community. Published twice a week, the episodes explore who gets to decide big questions of public policy and why, analyze the design of our national political institutions and the contested boundaries between them, and look at the structure of constitutional rights.