Illegal Commerce
Clause 3. The Congress shall have Power * * * To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.
Annotations
That Congress’s protective power over interstate commerce reaches all kinds of obstructions and impediments was made clear in United States v. Ferger.705 The defendants had been indicted for issuing a false bill of lading to cover a fictitious shipment in interstate commerce. Before the Court they argued that, because there could be no commerce in a fraudulent bill of lading, Congress had no power to exercise criminal jurisdiction over them. Chief Justice White wrote: “But this mistakenly assumes that the power of Congress is to be necessarily tested by the intrinsic existence of commerce in the particular subject dealt with, instead of by the relation of that subject to commerce and its effect upon it. We say mistakenly assumes, because we think it clear that if the proposition were sustained it would destroy the power of Congress to regulate, as obviously that power, if it is to exist, must include the authority to deal with obstructions to interstate commerce . . . and with a host of other acts which, because of their relation to and influence upon interstate commerce, come within the power of Congress to regulate, although they are not interstate commerce in and of themselves.”706 Much of Congress’s criminal legislation is based simply on the crossing of a state line as creating federal jurisdiction.707
705 250 U.S. 199 (1919).
706 250 U.S. at 203.
707 E.g., Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308 (1913) (transportation of women for purposes of prostitution); Gooch v. United States, 297 U.S. 124 (1936) (kidnaping); Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432 (1925) (stolen autos). For example, in Scarborough v. United States, 431 U.S. 563 (1977), the Court upheld a conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon upon a mere showing that the gun had sometime previously traveled in interstate commerce, and Barrett v. United States, 423 U.S. 212 (1976), upheld a conviction for receipt of a firearm on the same showing. The Court does require Congress in these cases to speak plainly in order to reach such activity, inasmuch as historic state police powers are involved. United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336 (1971).
