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Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)

643

Souter, J., dissenting

301 U. S. 1 (1937), which brought the earlier and nearly dis-
astrous experiment to an end. And yet today’s decision can
only be seen as a step toward recapturing the prior mistakes.
Its revival of a distinction between commercial and non-
commercial conduct is at odds with Wickard, which re-
pudiated that analysis, and the enquiry into commercial
purpose, ﬁrst intimated by the Lopez concurrence, see Lopez,
supra, at 580 (opinion of Kennedy, J.),
is cousin to the
intent-based analysis employed in Hammer, supra, at 271–
272, but rejected for Commerce Clause purposes in Heart
of Atlanta, supra, at 257, and Darby, 312 U. S., at 115.

Why is the majority tempted to reject the lesson so pain-
fully learned in 1937? An answer emerges from contrast-
ing Wickard with one of the predecessor cases it superseded.
It was obvious in Wickard that growing wheat for consump-
tion right on the farm was not “commerce” in the common
vocabulary,13 but that did not matter constitutionally so
long as the aggregated activity of domestic wheat growing
affected commerce substantially. Just a few years before

13 Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, ante, at 611, n. 4, Wickard v. Fil-
burn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), applied the substantial effects test to domestic
agricultural production for domestic consumption, an activity that cannot
fairly be described as commercial, despite its commercial consequences in
affecting or being affected by the demand for agricultural products in the
commercial market. The Wickard Court admitted that Filburn’s activity
“may not be regarded as commerce” but insisted that “it may still, what-
ever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic
effect on interstate commerce . . . .”
Id., at 125. The characterization of
home wheat production as “commerce” or not is, however, ultimately be-
side the point. For if substantial effects on commerce are proper subjects
of concern under the Commerce Clause, what difference should it make
whether the causes of those effects are themselves commercial? Cf., e. g.,
National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U. S. 249, 258
(1994) (“An enterprise surely can have a detrimental inﬂuence on inter-
state or foreign commerce without having its own proﬁt-seeking mo-
tives”). The Court’s answer is that it makes a difference to federalism,
and the legitimacy of the Court’s new judicially derived federalism is the
crux of our disagreement. See infra, at 644–646.