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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 93-1260
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UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v.
ALFONSO LOPEZ, Jr.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the fifth circuit
[April 26, 1995]

  Justice Thomas, concurring.
  The Court today properly concludes that the Commerce
Clause does not grant Congress the authority to prohibit
gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school, as it
attempted to do in the Gun-Free School Zones Act of
1990, Pub. L. 101-647, 104 Stat. 4844.  Although I join
the majority, I write separately to observe that our case
law has drifted far from the original understanding of
the Commerce Clause.  In a future case, we ought to
temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence in a manner
that both makes sense of our more recent case law and
is more faithful to the original understanding of that
Clause.
  We have said that Congress may regulate not only
-Commerce . . . among the several states,- U. S. Const.,
Art. I, 8, cl. 3, but also anything that has a -substan-
tial effect- on such commerce.  This test, if taken to its
logical extreme, would give Congress a -police power-
over all aspects of American life.  Unfortunately, we
have never come to grips with this implication of our
substantial effects formula.  Although we have sup-
posedly applied the substantial effects test for the past
60 years, we always have rejected readings of the Com-
merce Clause and the scope of federal power that would
permit Congress to exercise a police power; our cases are
quite clear that there are real limits to federal power.
See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. ___, ___ (1992)
(slip op., at 7) (-[N]o one disputes the proposition that
`[t]he Constitution created a Federal Government of lim-
ited powers'-) (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S.
452, 457 (1991); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196
(1968); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301
U. S. 1, 37 (1937).  Cf. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419,
435 (1793) (Iredell, J.) (-Each State in the Union is sov-
ereign as to all the powers reserved.  It must neces-
sarily be so, because the United States have no claim to
any authority but such as the States have surrendered
to them-).  Indeed, on this crucial point, the majority
and Justice Breyer agree in principle: the Federal Gov-
ernment has nothing approaching a police power.  Com-
pare ante, at 7-9 with post, at 10-11.
  While the principal dissent concedes that there are
limits to federal power, the sweeping nature of our
current test enables the dissent to argue that Congress
can regulate gun possession.  But it seems to me that
the power to regulate -commerce- can by no means
encompass authority over mere gun possession, any more
than it empowers the Federal Government to regulate
marriage, littering, or cruelty to animals, throughout the
50 States.  Our Constitution quite properly leaves such
matters to the individual States, notwithstanding these
activities' effects on interstate commerce.  Any interpre-
tation of the Commerce Clause that even suggests that
Congress could regulate such matters is in need of
reexamination.
  In an appropriate case, I believe that we must further
reconsider our -substantial effects- test with an eye
toward constructing a standard that reflects the text and
history of the Commerce Clause without totally rejecting
our more recent Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
  Today, however, I merely support the Court's conclu-
sion with a discussion of the text, structure, and history
of the Commerce Clause and an analysis of our early
case law.  My goal is simply to show how far we have
departed from the original understanding and to demon-
strate that the result we reach today is by no means
-radical,- see post, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting).  I also
want to point out the necessity of refashioning a
coherent test that does not tend to -obliterate the
distinction between what is national and what is local
and create a completely centralized government.-  Jones
& Laughlin Steel Corp, supra, at 37.

                            I
  At the time the original Constitution was ratified,
-commerce- consisted of selling, buying, and bartering,
as well as transporting for these purposes.  See 1 S.
Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language 361 (4th
ed. 1773) (defining commerce as -Intercour[s]e; exchange
of one thing for another; interchange of any thing; trade;
traffick-); N. Bailey, An Universal Etymological English
Dictionary (26th ed. 1789) (-trade or traffic-); T. Sheri-
dan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language
(6th ed. 1796) (-Exchange of one thing for another;
trade, traffick-).  This understanding finds support in
the etymology of the word, which literally means -with
merchandise.-  See 3 Oxford English Dictionary 552 (2d
ed. 1989) (com--with-; merci--merchandise-).  In fact,
when Federalists and Anti-Federalists discussed the
Commerce Clause during the ratification period, they
often used trade (in its selling/bartering sense) and
commerce interchangeably.  See The Federalist No. 4,
p. 22 (J. Jay) (asserting that countries will cultivate our
friendship when our -trade- is prudently regulated by
Federal Government); id., No. 7, at 39-40 (A. Hamilton)
(discussing -competitions of commerce- between States
resulting from state -regulations of trade-); id., No. 40,
at 262 (J. Madison) (asserting that it was an -acknowl-
edged object of the Convention . . . that the regulation
of trade should be submitted to the general govern-
ment-); Lee, Letters of a Federal Farmer No. 5, in Pam-
phlets on the Constitution of the United States 319
(P. Ford ed. 1888); Smith, An Address to the People of
the State of New-York, in id., at 107.
  As one would expect, the term -commerce- was used
in contradistinction to productive activities such as
manufacturing and agriculture.  Alexander Hamilton, for
example, repeatedly treated commerce, agriculture, and
manufacturing as three separate endeavors.  See, e.g.,
The Federalist No. 36, at 224 (referring to -agriculture,
commerce, manufactures-); id., No. 21, at 133 (distin-
guishing commerce, arts, and industry); id., No. 12, at
74 (asserting that commerce and agriculture have shared
interests).  The same distinctions were made in the state
ratification conventions.  See e.g., 2 Debates in the Sev-
eral State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal
Constitution 57 (J. Elliot ed. 1836) (hereinafter Debates)
(T. Dawes at Massachusetts convention); id., at 336
(M. Smith at New York convention).
  Moreover, interjecting a modern sense of commerce
into the Constitution generates significant textual and
structural problems.  For example, one cannot replace
-commerce- with a different type of enterprise, such as
manufacturing.  When a manufacturer produces a car,
assembly cannot take place -with a foreign nation- or
-with the Indian Tribes.-  Parts may come from different
States or other nations and hence may have been in the
flow of commerce at one time, but manufacturing takes
place at a discrete site.  Agriculture and manufacturing
involve the production of goods; commerce encompasses
traffic in such articles.
  The Port Preference Clause also suggests that the
term -commerce- denoted sale and/or transport rather
than business generally.  According to that Clause, -[n]o
Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Com-
merce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those
of another.-  U. S. Const., Art. I, 9, cl. 6.  Although it
is possible to conceive of regulations of manufacturing or
farming that prefer one port over another, the more
natural reading is that the Clause prohibits Congress
from using its commerce power to channel commerce
through certain favored ports.
  The Constitution not only uses the word -commerce-
in a narrower sense than our case law might suggest, it
also does not support the proposition that Congress has
authority over all activities that -substantially affect-
interstate commerce.  The Commerce Clause does not
state that Congress may -regulate matters that substan-
tially affect commerce with foreign Nations, and among
the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.-  In
contrast, the Constitution itself temporarily prohibited
amendments that would -affect- Congress' lack of au-
thority to prohibit or restrict the slave trade or to enact
unproportioned direct taxation.  U. S. Const., Art. V.
Clearly, the Framers could have drafted a Constitution
that contained a -substantially affects interstate com-
merce- clause had that been their objective.
  In addition to its powers under the Commerce Clause,
Congress has the authority to enact such laws as are
-necessary and proper- to carry into execution its power
to regulate commerce among the several States.  U. S.
Const., Art. I, 8, cl. 18.  But on this Court's under-
standing of congressional power under these two Claus-
es, many of Congress' other enumerated powers under
Art. I, 8 are wholly superfluous.  After all, if Congress
may regulate all matters that substantially affect com-
merce, there is no need for the Constitution to specify
that Congress may enact bankruptcy laws, cl. 4, or coin
money and fix the standard of weights and measures,
cl. 5, or punish counterfeiters of United States coin and
securities, cl. 6.  Likewise, Congress would not need the
separate authority to establish post offices and post
roads, cl. 7, or to grant patents and copyrights, cl. 8, or
to -punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high
Seas,- cl. 10.  It might not even need the power to raise
and support an Army and Navy, cls. 12 and 13, for
fewer people would engage in commercial shipping if
they thought that a foreign power could expropriate
their property with ease.  Indeed, if Congress could reg-
ulate matters that substantially affect interstate com-
merce, there would have been no need to specify that
Congress can regulate international trade and commerce
with the Indians.  As the Framers surely understood,
these other branches of trade substantially affect inter-
state commerce.
  Put simply, much if not all of Art. I, 8 (including
portions of the Commerce Clause itself) would be
surplusage if Congress had been given authority over
matters that substantially affect interstate commerce.
An interpretation of cl. 3 that makes the rest of 8
superfluous simply cannot be correct.  Yet this Court's
Commerce Clause jurisprudence has endorsed just such
an interpretation: the power we have accorded Congress
has swallowed Art. I, 8.
  Indeed, if a -substantial effects- test can be appended
to the Commerce Clause, why not to every other power
of the Federal Government?  There is no reason for sin-
gling out the Commerce Clause for special treatment.
Accordingly, Congress could regulate all matters that
-substantially affect- the Army and Navy, bankruptcies,
tax collection, expenditures, and so on.  In that case, the
clauses of 8 all mutually overlap, something we can
assume the Founding Fathers never intended.
  Our construction of the scope of congressional author-
ity has the additional problem of coming close to turning
the Tenth Amendment on its head.  Our case law could
be read to reserve to the United States all powers not
expressly prohibited by the Constitution.  Taken to-
gether, these fundamental textual problems should, at
the very least, convince us that the -substantial effects-
test should be reexamined.

                           II
  The exchanges during the ratification campaign reveal
the relatively limited reach of the Commerce Clause and
of federal power generally.  The Founding Fathers con-
firmed that most areas of life (even many matters that
would have substantial effects on commerce) would
remain outside the reach of the Federal Government.
Such affairs would continue to be under the exclusive
control of the States.
  Early Americans understood that commerce, manufac-
turing, and agriculture, while distinct activities, were
intimately related and dependent on each other-that
each -substantially affected- the others.  After all, items
produced by farmers and manufacturers were the
primary articles of commerce at the time.  If commerce
was more robust as a result of federal superintendence,
farmers and manufacturers could benefit.  Thus, Oliver
Ellsworth of Connecticut attempted to convince farmers
of the benefits of regulating commerce.  -Your property
and riches depend on a ready demand and generous
price for the produce you can annually spare,- he wrote,
and these conditions exist -where trade flourishes and
when the merchant can freely export the produce of the
country- to nations that will pay the highest price.  A
Landholder No. 1, Connecticut Courant, Nov. 5, 1787, in
3 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Con-
stitution 399 (M. Jensen ed. 1978) (hereinafter Docu-
mentary History).  See also The Federalist No. 35, at
219 (A. Hamilton) (-[D]iscerning citizens are well aware
that the mechanic and manufacturing arts furnish the
materials of mercantile enterprise and industry.  Many
of them indeed are immediately connected with the
operations of commerce.  They know that the merchant
is their natural patron and friend-); id., at 221 (-Will
not the merchant . . . be disposed to cultivate . . . the
interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts to
which his commerce is so nearly allied?-); A Jerseyman:
To the Citizens of New Jersey, Trenton Mercury, Nov. 6,
1787, in 3 Documentary History 147 (noting that agricul-
ture will serve as a -source of commerce-); Marcus, The
New Jersey Journal, Nov. 14, 1787, id., at 152 (both the
mechanic and the farmer benefit from the prosperity of
commerce).  William Davie, a delegate to the North
Carolina Convention, illustrated the close link best:
-Commerce, sir, is the nurse of [agriculture and manu-
facturing].  The merchant furnishes the planter with
such articles as he cannot manufacture himself, and
finds him a market for his produce.  Agriculture cannot
flourish if commerce languishes; they are mutually de-
pendent on each other.-  4 Debates 20.
  Yet, despite being well aware that agriculture, manu-
facturing, and other matters substantially affected com-
merce, the founding generation did not cede authority
over all these activities to Congress.  Hamilton, for
instance, acknowledged that the Federal Government
could not regulate agriculture and like concerns:
-The administration of private justice between the
citizens of the same State, the supervision of agri-
culture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all
those things in short which are proper to be pro-
vided for by local legislation, can never be desirable
cares of a general jurisdiction.-  The Federalist
No. 17, at 106.
In the unlikely event that the Federal Government
would attempt to exercise authority over such matters,
its effort -would be as troublesome as it would be
nugatory.-  Ibid.
  The comments of Hamilton and others about federal
power reflected the well-known truth that the new Gov-
ernment would have only the limited and enumerated
powers found in the Constitution.  See, e.g., 2 Debates
267-268 (A. Hamilton at New York convention) (noting
that there would be just cause for rejecting the Constitu-
tion if it would enable the Federal Government to -alter,
or abrogate . . . [a state's] civil and criminal institutions
[or] penetrate the recesses of domestic life, and control,
in all respects, the private conduct of individuals-); The
Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison); 3 Debates 259
(J. Madison) (Virginia convention); R. Sherman &
O. Ellsworth, Letter to Governor Huntington, Sept. 26,
1787, in 3 Documentary History 352; J. Wilson, Speech
in the State House Yard, Oct. 6, 1787, in 2 id., at
167-168.  Agriculture and manufacture, since they were
not surrendered to the Federal Government, were state
concerns.  See The Federalist No. 34, at 212-213
(A. Hamilton) (observing that the -internal encourage-
ment of agriculture and manufactures- was an object of
state expenditure).  Even before the passage of the
Tenth Amendment, it was apparent that Congress would
possess only those powers -herein granted- by the rest
of the Constitution.  U. S. Const., Art. I, 1.
  Where the Constitution was meant to grant federal
authority over an activity substantially affecting in-
terstate commerce, the Constitution contains an enu-
merated power over that particular activity.  Indeed, the
Framers knew that many of the other enumerated pow-
ers in 8 dealt with matters that substantially affected
interstate commerce.  Madison, for instance, spoke of the
bankruptcy power as being -intimately connected with
the regulation of commerce.-  The Federalist No. 42, at
287.  Likewise, Hamilton urged that -[i]f we mean to be
a commercial people or even to be secure on our Atlantic
side, we must endeavour as soon as possible to have a
navy.-  Id., No. 24, at 157 (A. Hamilton).
  In short, the Founding Fathers were well aware of what
the principal dissent calls -`economic . . . realities.'-
See post, at 11-12 (Breyer, J.) (citing North American
Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705 (1946)).  Even though
the boundary between commerce and other matters may
ignore -economic reality- and thus seem arbitrary or
artificial to some, we must nevertheless respect a
constitutional line that does not grant Congress power
over all that substantially affects interstate commerce.

                           III
  If the principal dissent's understanding of our early
case law were correct, there might be some reason to
doubt this view of the original understanding of the
Constitution.  According to that dissent, Chief Justice
Marshall's opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1
(1824) established that Congress may control all local
activities that -significantly affect interstate commerce,-
post, at 1.  And, -with the exception of one wrong turn
subsequently corrected,- this has been the -traditiona[l]-
method of interpreting the Commerce Clause.  Post, at
18 (citing Gibbons and United States v. Darby, 312 U. S.
100, 116-117 (1941)).
  In my view, the dissent is wrong about the holding
and reasoning of Gibbons.  Because this error leads the
dissent to characterize the first 150 years of this Court's
case law as a -wrong turn,- I feel compelled to put the
last 50 years in proper perspective.

                            A
  In Gibbons, the Court examined whether a federal law
that licensed ships to engage in the -coasting trade- pre-
empted a New York law granting a 30-year monopoly to
Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton to navigate the
State's waterways by steamship.  In concluding that it
did, the Court noted that Congress could regulate -navi-
gation- because -[a]ll America . . . has uniformly under-
stood, the word `commerce,' to comprehend navigation.
It was so understood, and must have been so under-
stood, when the constitution was framed.-  9 Wheat.,
at 190.  The Court also observed that federal power over
commerce -among the several States- meant that Con-
gress could regulate commerce conducted partly within
a State.  Because a portion of interstate commerce and
foreign commerce would almost always take place within
one or more States, federal power over interstate and
foreign commerce necessarily would extend into the
States.  Id., at 194-196.
  At the same time, the Court took great pains to make
clear that Congress could not regulate commerce -which
is completely internal, which is carried on between man
and man in a State, or between different parts of the
same State, and which does not extend to or affect other
States.-  Id., at 194.  Moreover, while suggesting that
the Constitution might not permit States to regulate
interstate or foreign commerce, the Court observed that
-[i]nspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every
description, as well as laws for regulating the internal
commerce of a State- were but a small part -of that
immense mass of legislation . . . not surrendered to a
general government.-  Id., at 203.  From an early
moment, the Court rejected the notion that Congress can
regulate everything that affects interstate commerce.
That the internal commerce of the States and the
numerous state inspection, quarantine, and health laws
had substantial effects on interstate commerce cannot be
doubted.  Nevertheless, they were not -surrendered to
the general government.-
  Of course, the principal dissent is not the first to
misconstrue Gibbons.  For instance, the Court has stated
that Gibbons -described the federal commerce power
with a breadth never yet exceeded.-  Wickard v. Filburn,
317 U. S. 111, 120 (1942).  See also Perez v. United
States, 402 U. S. 146, 151 (1971) (claiming that with
Darby and Wickard, -the broader view of the Commerce
Clause announced by Chief Justice Marshall had been
restored-).  I believe that this misreading stems from
two statements in Gibbons.
  First, the Court made the uncontroversial claim that
federal power does not encompass -commerce- that -does
not extend to or affect other States.-  9 Wheat., at 194
(emphasis added).  From this statement, the principal
dissent infers that whenever an activity affects inter-
state commerce, it necessarily follows that Congress can
regulate such activities.  Of course, Chief Justice
Marshall said no such thing and the inference the
dissent makes cannot be drawn.
  There is a much better interpretation of the -affect[s]-
language: because the Court had earlier noted that the
commerce power did not extend to wholly intrastate com-
merce, the Court was acknowledging that although the
line between intrastate and interstate/foreign commerce
would be difficult to draw, federal authority could not be
construed to cover purely intrastate commerce.  Com-
merce that did not affect another State could never be
said to be commerce -among the several States.-
  But even if one were to adopt the dissent's reading,
the -affect[s]- language, at most, permits Congress to
regulate only intrastate commerce that substantially
affects interstate and foreign commerce.  There is no
reason to believe that Chief Justice Marshall was as-
serting that Congress could regulate all activities that
affect interstate commerce.  See Ibid.
  The second source of confusion stems from the Court's
praise for the Constitution's division of power between
the States and the Federal Government:
-The genius and character of the whole government
seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the
external concerns of the nation, and to those inter-
nal concerns which affect the States generally; but
not to those which are completely within a particu-
lar State, which do not affect other States, and with
which it is not necessary to interfere, for the pur-
pose of executing some of the general powers of the
government.-  Id., at 195.
In this passage, the Court merely was making the well
understood point that the Constitution commits matters
of -national- concern to Congress and leaves -local- mat-
ters to the States.  The Court was not saying that
whatever Congress believes is a national matter
becomes an object of federal control.  The matters of
national concern are enumerated in the Constitution:
war, taxes, patents, and copyrights, uniform rules of
naturalization and bankruptcy, types of commerce, and
so on.  See generally U. S. Const., Art. I, 8.  Gibbons'
emphatic statements that Congress could not regulate
many matters that affect commerce confirm that the
Court did not read the Commerce Clause as granting
Congress control over matters that -affect the States
generally.-  Gibbons simply cannot be construed as the
principal dissent would have it.

                            B
  I am aware of no cases prior to the New Deal that
characterized the power flowing from the Commerce
Clause as sweepingly as does our substantial effects
test.  My review of the case law indicates that the sub-
stantial effects test is but an innovation of the 20th
century.
  Even before Gibbons, Chief Justice Marshall, writing
for the Court in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264
(1821), noted that Congress had -no general right to
punish murder committed within any of the States,- id.,
at 426, and that it was -clear that congress cannot pun-
ish felonies generally,- id., at 428.  The Court's only
qualification was that Congress could enact such laws
for places where it enjoyed plenary powers-for in-
stance, over the District of Columbia.  Id., at 426.
Thus, whatever effect ordinary murders, or robbery, or
gun possession might have on interstate commerce (or
on any other subject of federal concern) was irrelevant
to the question of congressional power.
  United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41 (1870), marked the
first time the Court struck down a federal law as ex-
ceeding the power conveyed by the Commerce Clause.
In a two-page opinion, the Court invalidated a nation-
wide law prohibiting all sales of naphtha and illuminat-
ing oils.  In so doing, the Court remarked that the
Commerce Clause -has always been understood as limit-
ed by its terms; and as a virtual denial of any power to
interfere with the internal trade and business of the
separate States.-  Id., at 44.  The law in question was
-plainly a regulation of police,- which could have consti-
tutional application only where Congress had exclusive
authority, such as the territories.  Id., at 44-45.  See
also License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 470-471 (1867)
(Congress cannot interfere with the internal commerce
and business of a State);  Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S.
82 (1879) (Congress cannot regulate internal com-
merce 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 monopo-
lize 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 manufac-
ture, 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 man-
ufactures as are intended to be the subject of com-
mercial 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 manufac-
tures, but also agriculture, horticulture, stock rais-
ing, domestic fisheries, mining-in short, every
branch of human industry.'-  E. C. Knight, 156
U. S., 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 essen-
tial thereto.  Without agriculture, manufacturing, min-
ing, 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.
  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 em-
ployee 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 intra-
state sales of sick chickens or the labor of employees
involved in intrastate poultry sales).  The Federal Gov-
ernment 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.  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 flaw that it appears to grant Congress a
police power over the Nation.  When asked at oral argu-
ment if there were any limits to the Commerce Clause,
the Government was at a loss for words.  Tr. of Oral
Arg. 5.  Likewise, the principal dissent insists that
there are limits, but it cannot muster even one example.
Post, at 10-11.  Indeed, the dissent implicitly concedes
that its reading has no limits when it criticizes the
Court for -threaten[ing] legal uncertainty in an area of
law that . . . seemed reasonably well settled.-  Post, at
17-18.  The one advantage of the dissent's standard is
certainty: it is certain that under its analysis everything
may be regulated under the guise of the Commerce
Clause.
  The substantial effects test suffers from this flaw, in
part, because of its -aggregation principle.-  Under so-
called -class of activities- statutes, Congress can regu-
late whole categories of activities that are not them-
selves either -interstate- or -commerce.-  In applying
the effects test, we ask whether the class of activities as
a whole substantially affects interstate commerce, not
whether any specific activity within the class has such
effects when considered in isolation.  See Maryland v.
Wirtz, 392 U. S., at 192-193 (if class of activities is
-`within the reach of federal power,'- courts may not
excise individual applications as trivial) (quoting Darby,
312 U. S., at 120-121).
  The aggregation principle is clever, but has no stop-
ping point.  Suppose all would agree that gun posses-
sion within 1,000 feet of a school does not substantially
affect commerce, but that possession of weapons gener-
ally (knives, brass knuckles, nunchakus, etc.) does.
Under our substantial effects doctrine, even though
Congress cannot single out gun possession, it can pro-
hibit weapon possession generally.  But one always can
draw the circle broadly enough to cover an activity that,
when taken in isolation, would not have substantial ef-
fects on commerce.  Under our jurisprudence, if Con-
gress passed an omnibus -substantially affects interstate
commerce- statute, purporting to regulate every aspect
of human existence, the Act apparently would be consti-
tutional.  Even though particular sections may govern
only trivial activities, the statute in the aggregate regu-
lates matters that substantially affect commerce.

                            V
  This extended discussion of the original understanding
and our first century and a half of case law does not
necessarily require a wholesale abandonment of our
more recent opinions.  It simply reveals that our sub-
stantial effects test is far removed from both the Consti-
tution and from our early case law and that the Court's
opinion should not be viewed as -radical- or another
-wrong turn- that must be corrected in the future.
The analysis also suggests that we ought to temper our
Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
  Unless the dissenting Justices are willing to repudiate
our long-held understanding of the limited nature of
federal power, I would think that they too must be
willing to reconsider the substantial effects test in a
future case.  If we wish to be true to a Constitution
that does not cede a police power to the Federal Gov-
ernment, our Commerce Clause's boundaries simply
cannot be -defined- as being -`commensurate with the
national needs'- or self-consciously intended to let the
Federal Government -`defend itself against economic
forces that Congress decrees inimical or destructive of
the national economy.'-  See post, at 12-13 )Breyer, J.,
dissenting) (quoting North American Co. v. SEC, 327
U. S. 686, 705 (1946)).  Such a formulation of federal
power is no test at all: it is a blank check.
  At an appropriate juncture, I think we must modify
our Commerce Clause jurisprudence.  Today, it is easy
enough to say that the Clause certainly does not em-
power Congress to ban gun possession within 1,000 feet
of a school.