Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump · ¶296

In determining the ordinary meaning of “regulate . . . importation,” the meaning of the related phrase “regulate commerce” is also instructive. That phrase has long been interpreted to encompass tariffs. Since the Founding, the Constitution's assignment to Congress of the broad power to “regulate” foreign commerce has been understood to include tariffs on foreign imports. See Art. I, § 8. As Chief Justice Marshall explained, the “right to regulate commerce, even by the imposition of duties, was not controverted.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 202 (1824) (emphasis added). So too Justice Story: The “power to regulate commerce includes the power of laying duties to countervail the regulations and restrictions of foreign nations.” 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 530 (1833) (emphasis added). And still more Story: To “lay duties” is a “common means of…

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