The founders at Convention in Philadelphia created our Constitution in the summer of 1787. That was roughly ten years after Adam Smith had written his monumental Wealth of Nations and several decades before the earliest period anyone would call the 'industrial revolution'.
There were no department stores, there were no cash registers and there were virtually no retail business employees. There was limited public transportation and nothing resembling a modern hotel or restaurant. There were people who took in guests and served food in their homes.
The only thing resembling modern commerce were sailing ships for the transportation and market auctioning of commodities.
At the constitutional convention, where 55 men were struggling to design a new government there was no consideration for the world of modern commerce. It didn't exist yet. There was an awareness of commerce between states and nations and the need to eliminate tariff barriers that were common on all the roads and rivers. Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris are among the few who had an understanding of finance and the general issues of commerce. Two out of 55.
Which is the whole point of this blog. The Constitution that we live under was not designed for a commercial modern world.
Our constitution works for two reasons: * Number one, it is capable of change and * Number two, it is capable of interpretation.
So far very little has been changed through the amendment process to accommodate commerce except for an amendment allowing income tax.
Most of the interpretation has been around the 'commerce clause' in the Philadelphia Constitution. This was begun by the Supreme Court. Its first ruling in Madison versus Marbury established the right of states to internally regulate commerce and the right of Congress to protect interstate commerce.
It is my opinion that the Constitution of the United States creates and supports commerce mostly through its significant restraint on the powers of government. We were given a government that was inherently ineffective and inefficient. It is that stubbornly inappropriate government that has allowed commerce to thrive.
Commerce does best where the government is modest but stable.