Reading the Constitution

What does "supporting the Constitution of the United States" actually mean? We know what the Constitution said originally. After all, we have the original document in hand. However, the document itself provides for making changes, or amendments so it is possible to say exactly what the Constitution said at any particular time, depending on when it was last amended. All of that is clear.

What is not so clear is what parts of this document mean, amended or not. We have to ask, "how do you read this section?" Well, when we read anything, we usually start out, at least, reading it in terms of a contemporary understanding of the terms, phrases, idioms, and colloquialisms used in the text. However, with any old document, there is a long history of meanings that may have changed in substantial ways. Hence, reading a section of the Constitution can vary significantly, depending upon what historical period we give emphasis to in our reading.

Today, we are faced with the fact that the Constitution itself is completely silent on the question of how it is to be read. That is, it gives no more credibility to those who would read it in its original meanings (so far as we can determine those from other historical sources) than it does to those who consider it a "living document" that we should read in a contemporary framework. Yet Conservatives want to insist that we read it in its original-meaning context. Unfortunately, they assume this but give no compelling argument for it.

Take the so-called "interstate commerce clause." Some Conservatives want to say that the Constitution does not use the expression "interstate commerce." That, of course, is true. What it actually says is that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." What is at issue, then, is how we read "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States."

So my Conservative friend, Longshot, wants to claim that we read this literally as "States" and not as "people of the States." He goes on to claim that "a good case could be made that the intent of this power was to regulate the trade relations between the states in the Union.  This would prevent the states from erecting trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas."

I have to say that I find this argument pretty shallow. When do states themselves engage in commerce with each other? I suppose that the State of California might sell certain resources to the State of Nevada. While that is certainly possible, it is far more likely that what the framers of the Constitution had in mind was that persons in one state might engage in commerce with persons of another state. This situation might prompt a state to lay a tariff on commercial goods passing across the state line; but isn't that precisely what Congress was empowered to prevent. If we look back at the document itself, there is no impulse to suggest that the only commerce to be regulated was literally that with foreign Nations rather than commerce with the people of foreign nations. It was a question of things crossing over boundaries between foreign nations and our national boundaries, no matter what the agency of commerce.

The reason for the Conservative argument is that Longshot doesn't want Congress to have power over people in a state, only the institutionalized state itself. You can regulate my state but you can't regulate me.