the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and
among the several States and with the Indian tribes."

The power "to regulate:" Does this ever embrace the power to create or
to construct? To say that it does is to confound the meaning of words
of well-known signification. The word "regulate" has several shades of
meaning, according to its application to different subjects, but never
does it approach the signification of creative power. The regulating
power necessarily presupposes the existence of something to be
regulated. As applied to commerce, it signifies, according to the
lexicographers, "to subject to rules or restrictions, as to regulate
trade," etc. The Constitution itself is its own best expounder of the
meaning of words employed by its framers. Thus, Congress have the power
"to coin money." This is the creative power. Then immediately follows
the power "to regulate the value thereof "--that is, of the coined money
thus brought into existence. The words "regulate," "regulation," and
"regulations" occur several times in the Constitution, but always with
this subordinate meaning. Thus, after the creative power "to raise and
support armies" and "to provide and maintain a navy" had been conferred
upon Congress, then follows the power "to make rules for the government
and regulation of the land and naval forces" thus called into being. So
the Constitution, acting upon the self-evident fact that "commerce with
foreign nations and among the several States and with the Indian tribes"
already existed, conferred upon Congress the power "to regulate" this
commerce. Thus, according to Chief Justice Marshall, the power to
regulate commerce "is the power to prescribe the rule by which commerce
is to be governed." And Mr. Madison, in his veto message of the 3d
March, 1817, declares that--

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not
include a power to construct roads and canals and to improve the
navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and
secure such commerce, without a latitude of construction departing
from the ordinary import of the terms, strengthened by the known
inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial
power to Congress.

We know from the history of the Constitution what these inconveniences
were. Different States admitted foreign imports at different rates of
duty. Those which had prescribed a higher rate of duty for the pur