598
Thomas, J., concurring
cannot regulate internal commerce and thus may not establish national trademark registration).
In United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1 (1895), this Court held that mere attempts to monopolize the manufacture of sugar could not be regulated pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Raising echoes of the discussions of the Framers regarding the intimate relationship between commerce and manufacturing, the Court declared that "[c]ommerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a part of it." Id., at 12. The Court also approvingly quoted from Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20 (1888):
" 'No distinction is more popular to the common mind, or more clearly expressed in economic and political literature, than that between manufacture and commerce . . . . If it be held that the term [commerce] includes the regulation of all such manufactures as are intended to be the subject of commercial transactions in the future, it is impossible to deny that it would also include all productive industries that contemplate the same thing. The result would be that Congress would be invested . . . with the power to regulate, not only manufactures, but also agriculture, horticulture, stock raising, domestic fisheries, mining—in short, every branch of human industry.' " E. C. Knight, supra, at 14.
If federal power extended to these types of production "comparatively little of business operations and affairs would be left for state control." Id., at 16. See also Newberry v. United States, 256 U. S. 232, 257 (1921) ("It is settled . . . that the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce does not reach whatever is essential thereto. Without agriculture, manufacturing, mining, etc., commerce could not exist, but this fact does not suffice to subject them to the control of Congress"). Whether or not manufacturing, agriculture, or other matters substantially affected interstate commerce was irrelevant.
Page: Index Previous 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007