The Economy and the Consitution

Throughout the history of our national government and the Constitution, the economy has been one of the most timeless and controversial topics when dealing with the constitution. From the very launching of the new government, new economic policies proposed by Alexander Hamilton were scrutinized in order to determine their constitutionality. Hamilton invoked the elastic clause in his argument, stating that anything the Constitution didn’t prohibit, it allowed. Jefferson, on the other hand, argued that anything the Constitution didn’t allow, it prohibited. All of our constitutional debates are settled by looking at changes made in the past, both by the Supreme Court and just through change in practice.

Another economic issue that was debated with regard to the Constitution is the beginning of corporate regulation in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Commerce Clause of the Constitution was added to the Constitution as a response to one of the issues that actually necessitated the Constitution in the first place: the regulation of interstate commerce. In the decision of Gonzales v. Raich in 2005, Justice John Paul Stevens said this on the matter:

The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers' response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation. For the first century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had once been permissible. Then, in response to rapid industrial development and an increasingly interdependent national economy, Congress “ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power,” beginning with the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.

Today, we clearly interpret that Constitution much differently than we did at the inception of the nation. Some would argue that these interpretations should not be made, but not to do so would precipitate a whole slew of issues. After all, the founders could not even begin to imagine the world we live in today.