Madison failed to attach his commerce amendment to the Articles, but he revived the idea when the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1787. On the first day of substantive debate -- May 29, 1787 -- the Commerce Clause was there as fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph presented Madison's constitutional framework.
Madison's convention notes recount Randolph saying that "there were many advantages, which the U. S. might acquire, which were not attainable under the confederation -- such as a productive impost [or tax] -- counteraction of the commercial regulations of other nations -- pushing of commerce ad libitum -- &c &c."
In other words, the Founders -- at their most "originalist" moment -- understood the value of the federal government taking action to negate the commercial advantages of other countries and to take steps for "pushing of [American] commerce." The "ad libitum -- &c &c" notation suggests that Randolph provided other examples off the top of his head.
So, Madison and other key Framers recognized that a legitimate role of Congress was to ensure that the nation could match up against other countries commercially and could address problems impeding the nation's economic success.
After the Convention, when the proposed Constitution was under fire from Anti-Federalists who favored retaining the states-rights orientation of the Articles of Confederation, Madison returned, in the Federalist Papers, to arguing the value of the Commerce Clause.
In Federalist Paper No. 14, Madison explained how the Commerce Clause could help the young nation overcome some of its problems with communications and access to interior lands.
"[T]he union will be daily facilitated by new improvements," Madison wrote. ...
"Roads will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; an interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened throughout, or nearly throughout the whole extent of the Thirteen States."The communication between the western and Atlantic districts, and between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to connect and complete."
The building of canals, as an argument in support of the Commerce Clause and the Constitution, further reflects the pragmatic -- and commercial -- attitudes of key Founders. In 1785, two years before the Constitutional Convention, George Washington established the Potowmack Company, which began digging canals to extend navigable waterways westward where he and other Founders had invested in Ohio and other undeveloped lands.
Thus, the idea of involving the central government in major economic projects -- a government-business partnership to create jobs and profits -- was there from the beginning. Madison, Washington and other early American leaders saw the Constitution as creating a dynamic system so the young country could grow and compete with rival economies around the world.
Ironically, given today's furor over the Commerce Clause and the Affordable Care Act, Madison considered the grant of power to Congress to regulate interstate commerce one of the Constitution's least controversial elements.
In Federalist Paper No. 45, Madison referred to the Commerce Clause as "a new power; but ... an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Did the Founders Hate Government?"]
The Musket Mandate
The pragmatic Founders also saw no problem in mandating Americans to buy private products, despite the insistence of today's Republicans that such a mandate has never been enacted in U.S. history, before the Affordable Care Act's mandate on uninsured Americans to buy health insurance (with financial help from the government).
In 1792, just four years after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Madison and Washington supported the Militia Acts, which mandated that all white men of fighting age obtain their own muskets and related equipment so they could participate in armed militias. Madison was a member of the Second Congress, which passed the law, and Washington was the First President, who signed it.
Though the law was passed under Article Two powers of the Executive, which makes the President the Commander in Chief of the military, not Article One's Commerce Clause, the principle is the same, that the government can order Americans to buy something that Congress deems necessary for the country's good.
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