Today in Supreme Court History: June 3, 1918

6/3/1918: Hammer v. Dagenhart decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

One should remember that the statute being struck down did not prohibit child labor. It prohibited interstate sale of the resulting products. Even that did not constitute "regulating interstate commerce" according to the pre-1937 Court.

[Dilan Esper]

Underrated on lists of "worst Supreme Court decision". The entire E.C. Knight doctrine that "manufacturing isn't commerce" may literally be the dumbest doctrine in SCOTUS history. The notion that, say, a large General Motors plant in Detroit that makes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cars for sale in the United States and abroad is not a part of "commerce among the several states" is ridiculous.

The E.C. Knight doctrine happened because the Court couldn't, ideologically, stand the idea that as more and more commerce became interstate commerce, the federal government's power expanded along with it. But that's literally what the Constitution says. If we have more commerce among the several states, the power is broader; if we have less, the power is narrower.

Other aspects of the commerce power raise real problems; this does not. Hammer should have been a no-brainer, 9-0 win for the government.