by purchases in the open market. perceptibly, though minutely, to recording instruments at the center. 249, 39 L.Ed. 758, 780, 79 L.Ed. Guns are both articles of commerce and articles that can be used to restrain commerce. 945 (1946) (citing Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S., at 398, 25 S.Ct., at 280 (Holmes, J.)). Brief for United States 17. v. Alton R. Co., 295 U.S. 330, 368, 55 S.Ct. Cf. the statute in Bass, §922(q) has no express jurisdictional one of degree." regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de Id., at 398, 25 S.Ct., at 280. 1888); Smith, An Address to the People of the State of New York, in id., at 107. See infra, at ----. Activities that affected interstate commerce directly were within Congress' power; activities that affected interstate commerce indirectly were beyond Congress' reach. J. Vaizey, The Political Economy of Human Capital (1973). 25 ("[W]e're not relying on them in the strict sense of the word, but we think that at a very minimum they indicate that reasons can be identified for why Congress wanted to regulate this particular activity"). National Academy of Education, Economic Dimensions of Education (1979). U.S. 452, 458 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted). Const., Art. Without agriculture, manufacturing, mining, etc., commerce could not exist, but this fact does not suffice to subject them to the control of Congress"). 12, at 74 (asserting that commerce and agriculture have shared interests). . Id., at 195. For another thing, the immediacy of the connection between education and the national economic well-being is documented by scholars and accepted by society at large in a way and to a degree that may not hold true for other social institutions. effect on the extent of classroom learning. Post, at __. separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government P. Applebome, Employers Wary of School System, N.Y. Times, Feb. 20, 1995, p. A1, col. 1. Respectfully, I dissent. 502, 518-519, 55 L.Ed. States"). Although the precise line between interstate/foreign commerce and purely intrastate commerce was hard to draw, the Court attempted to adhere to such a line for the first 150 years of our Nation. The move, however, has been brewing in the court for years, led by conservative Justices. Likewise, there were no laws in the early Congresses that regulated manufacturing and agriculture. See Perez, supra, 402 U.S., at 156-157, 91 S.Ct., at 1362-1363. Brief for United States 29, n. 18; see also Statement of President George Likewise, when faced with two plausible interpretations of a federal criminal statute, we generally will take the alternative that does not force us to impute an intention to Congress to use its full commerce power to regulate conduct traditionally and ably regulated by the States. 1, 6 L.Ed. a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control state balance." realities.' But our hesitance to presume that Congress has acted to alter the state-federal status quo (when presented with a plausible alternative) has no relevance whatever to the enquiry whether it has the commerce power to do so or to the standard of judicial review when Congress has definitely meant to exercise that power. The negative impact upon the national economy of an inability to teach basic skills seems no smaller (nor less significant) than that of organized crime. inherent in the very language of the Commerce Clause. posses[s], or transpor[t] in commerce or affecting commerce . In the Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U.S. 352, 33 S.Ct. According to that dissent, Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. sought to protect an instrumentality of interstate commerce or a thing But the question respecting the extent No. . If a State or municipality determines that harsh criminal sanctions are necessary and wise to deter students from carrying guns on school premises, the reserved powers of the States are sufficient to enact those measures. need [not] make particularized findings in order to legislate"). See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 101 S.Ct. among the several States . There is irony in this, because of the four structural elements in the Constitution just mentioned, federalism was the unique contribution of the Framers to political science and political theory. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk 8-9 (Apr.1983). 563 (1955). See, e.g., MIT 32 (only about one-third of hand-tool company's 1,000 workers were qualified to work with a new process that requires high-school-level reading and mathematical skills); Cyert & Mowery 68 (gap between wages of high school dropouts and better trained workers increasing); U.S. Dept. 3. See also License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. only if the statutory language leaves no reasonable alternative"). . Similarly, under the Government's "national productivity" reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example. The simple fact was that in the early years of the Republic, Congress seldom perceived the necessity to exercise its power in circumstances where its authority would be called into question. 7, at 39-40 (A. Hamilton) (discussing "competitions of commerce" between States resulting from state "regulations of trade"); id., No. 1989) (Marshall). 1447, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1995). 578, 81 L.Ed. federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with Jones & Laughlin Steel, Darby, and Wickard (1803) (Marshall, C. by the States, but they should not be imposed upon the States by Congress"). 1988). In March 1992 Alfonso Lopez, Jr., a 12th-grade student in San Antonio, Texas, took a concealed .38-calibre handgun and five bullets to his high school. lacks any real limits because, depending on the level of generality, any 317 U. S., at 128. Itzkoff, America's Unspoken Economic Dilemma: Falling Intelligence Levels, 18 J.Social, Pol. intrastate economic activity where we have concluded that the activity 1, 196-197, 6 L.Ed. In 1887, Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. The distinction between what is patently commercial and what is not looks much like the old distinction between what directly affects commerce and what touches it only indirectly. 1961), can be interpreted to say that the essence of responsibility for a shift in power from the State to the Federal Government rests upon a political judgment, though he added assurance that "the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered," ibid. Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia, 12 How. 1028, 1031-1032, 10 L.Ed.2d 93 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S., at 487, 75 S.Ct., at 464. Likewise, Congress would not need the separate authority to establish post offices and post roads, cl. First, the Court made the uncontroversial claim that federal power does not encompass "commerce " that "does not extend to or affect other States." affect any sort of interstate commerce. that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. U.S.C. Id., at 16, 15 S.Ct., at 255. Rather, the Court faced the related but quite distinct question of the authority of the States to regulate matters that would be within the commerce power had Congress chosen to act. Marshall, The Implications of Internationalization for Labor Market Institutions and Industrial Relations Systems, in Rethinking Employment Policy 205 (D. Bawden & F. Skidmore eds. See e.g., 2 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 57 (J. Elliot ed. 2 See See MacCormack, Newman, & Rosenfield 73; Coffee 296. U.S. 833 (1976), overruled by Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan of Education and U.S. Department of Labor, The Bottom Line: Basic Skills in the Workplace 12 (1988). of Pres. United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. concluding that §922(q) "is a constitutional exercise of Congress' intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power But even these modern era precedents which have expanded congressional Morgan & Sirageldin, A Note on the Quality Dimension in Education, 76 J.Pol.Econ. APPENDIX. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1, 13, 15 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 103 S.Ct. D. Prothrow-Stith, Deadly Consequences (1991). The second legal problem the Court creates comes from its apparent belief that it can reconcile its holding with earlier cases by making a critical distinction between "commercial" and noncommercial "transaction[s]." See also United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110, 119, 62 S.Ct. Schecter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 550, 55 S.Ct. 451, 458-459, 85 L.Ed. of Atlanta Motel, 379 U. S., at 253. [I]t is clear that the Federal Government, when acting within a delegated power, may override countervailing state interests. KENNEDY, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which O'CONNOR, J., joined. The Court, through 1570 (1935) (wage and hour law provision of National Industrial Recovery Act had "no direct relation to interstate commerce"). They may, in fact, have great value in telling courts what to look for, in establishing at least one frame of reference for review, and in citing to factual authority. Having found that guns in schools significantly undermine the quality of education in our Nation's classrooms, Congress could also have found, given the effect of education upon interstate and foreign commerce, that gun-related violence in and around schools is a commercial, as well as a human, problem. the question of congressional power under the Commerce Clause "is necessarily Id., at 44-45. Id., at 349, 92 S.Ct., at 523. to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, 1341 (1914) (upholding ICC order to equalize inter- and intrastate rail rates); see generally Warren, supra, at 729-739, the period from the turn of the century to 1937 is better noted for a series of cases applying highly formalistic notions of "commerce" to invalidate federal social and economic legislation, see, e.g., Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 303-304, 56 S.Ct. Any possible benefit from eliminating this "legal uncertainty" would be at the expense of the Constitution's system of enumerated powers. 2352, 2360-2361, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 155-156, 91 S.Ct. But review for congressional wisdom would just be the old judicial pretension discredited and abandoned in 1937, and review for deliberateness would be as patently unconstitutional as an Act of Congress mandating long opinions from this Court. I, § 8, cl. 404 U. S., at 337. 12 and 13, for fewer people would engage in commercial shipping if they thought that a foreign power could expropriate their property with ease. Indeed, the dissent implicitly concedes that its reading has no limits when it criticizes the Court for "threaten[ing] legal uncertainty in an area of law that .

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