Cite as: 514 U. S. 549 (1995)
Souter, J., dissenting
729-730. Although the Court upheld a fair amount of the ensuing legislation as being within the commerce power, see, e. g., Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U. S. 495 (1922) (upholding an Act regulating trade practices in the meat packing industry); Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914) (upholding Interstate Commerce Commission order to equalize interstate 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 (1936) (striking Act prohibiting unfair labor practices in coal industry as regulation of "mining" and "production," not "commerce"); A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 545-548 (1935) (striking congressional regulation of activities affecting interstate commerce only "indirectly"); Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1918) (striking Act prohibiting shipment in interstate commerce of goods manufactured at factories using child labor because the Act regulated "manufacturing," not "commerce"); Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161 (1908) (striking protection of labor union membership as outside "commerce").
These restrictive views of commerce subject to congressional power complemented the Court's activism in limiting the enforceable scope of state economic regulation. It is most familiar history that during this same period the Court routinely invalidated state social and economic legislation under an expansive conception of Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process. See, e. g., Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Baldridge, 278 U. S. 105 (1928) (striking state law requiring pharmacy owners to be licensed as pharmacists); Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1 (1915) (striking state law prohibiting employers from requiring their employees to agree not to join labor organizations); Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905) (striking state law establishing maximum working hours for bakers). See generally L. Tribe, American Consti-
605
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