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Commerce in the Commerce Clause: A Response to Jack Balkin

David B. Kopel, Denver University, Sturm College of Law
Robert G. Natelson, Independence Institute

Abstract

The Constitution’s original meaning is its meaning to those ratifying the document during a discrete time period: from its adoption by the Constitutional Convention in late 1787 until Rhode Island’s ratification on May 29, 1790. Reconstructing it requires historical skills, including a comprehensive approach to sources. Jack Balkin’s article Commerce fails to consider the full range of evidence and thereby attributes to the Constitution’s Commerce Clause a scope that virtually no one in the Founding Era believed it had.

Suggested Citation

David B. Kopel and Robert G. Natelson. "Commerce in the Commerce Clause: A Response to Jack Balkin" Michigan Law Review First Impressions 109 (2010): 55-61.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_kopel/39