The Common-Market Constitution

Americans take it for granted that the states of the union make up an economic common market. But that is the case only because early in the nation's history the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution establishes a principle--sometimes called the "dormant Commerce Clause" principle--that blocks individual states from cutting off the free flow of cross-border trade. From the 1820s onward the Court has issued hundreds of rulings applying this doctrine to prevent the states from imposing tariff-like taxes, local processing requirements, and other restrictions on the free movement of goods and services across state lines. The result for the nation has been, as Justice Robert Jackson once observed, a "material success that . . . has been the most impressive in the history of commerce."

After joining the Court in 1986 Justice Antonin Scalia challenged the dormant Commerce Clause principle as an illegitimate judicial innovation at odds with a proper "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution. This critique, moreover, quickly picked up steam as other prominent jurists and commentators--most notably, Justice Clarence Thomas--gave it their enthusiastic support.

Is the originalist challenge to the dormant Commerce Clause rule well-founded? In The Common-Market Constitution, Coenen argues that the answer is no. Like Justice Scalia, Coenen focuses on discovering the original public meaning of the Commerce Clause. According to Coenen, however, the text and history of that clause compel a conclusion that is the direct opposite of the one that Justice Scalia reached. As Coenen demonstrates, a proper originalist assessment of the dormant Commerce Clause principle requires consideration of a sweeping body of text- and history-based evidence that ranges far beyond what critics of that principal rule have focused on in the past. A full and fair appraisal of that evidence, Coenen argues, leaves no doubt that the constitutional rule that the Court has long applied to safeguard the American common market does reflect the original public meaning of the Commerce Clause.