Cite as: 514 U. S. 549 (1995)
Thomas, J., concurring
As recently as 1936, the Court continued to insist that the Commerce Clause did not reach the wholly internal business of the States. See Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 308 (1936) (Congress may not regulate mine labor because "[t]he relation of employer and employee is a local relation"); see also A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 543-550 (1935) (holding that Congress may not regulate intrastate sales of sick chickens or the labor of employees involved in intrastate poultry sales). The Federal Government simply could not reach such subjects regardless of their effects on interstate commerce.
These cases all establish a simple point: From the time of the ratification of the Constitution to the mid-1930's, it was widely understood that the Constitution granted Congress only limited powers, notwithstanding the Commerce Clause.7 Moreover, there was no question that activities wholly separated from business, such as gun possession, were beyond the reach of the commerce power. If anything, the "wrong turn" was the Court's dramatic departure in the 1930's from a century and a half of precedent.
IV
Apart from its recent vintage and its corresponding lack of any grounding in the original understanding of the Constitution, the substantial effects test suffers from the further
7 To be sure, congressional power pursuant to the Commerce Clause was alternatively described less narrowly or more narrowly during this 150-year period. Compare United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72, 78 (1838) (commerce power "extends to such acts, done on land, which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent the due exercise of the power to regulate [interstate and international] commerce" such as stealing goods from a beached ship), with United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, 13 (1895) ("Contracts to buy, sell, or exchange goods to be transported among the several States, the transportation and its instrumentalities . . . may be regulated, but this is because they form part of interstate trade or commerce"). During this period, however, this Court never held that Congress could regulate everything that substantially affects commerce.
599
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