a showing of actual damage.[306]

Clause 3. _The Congress shall have power_ * * * To regulate Commerce
with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian
Tribes.

Purpose of the Clause

This clause serves a two-fold purpose: it is the direct source of the
most important powers which the National Government exercises in time of
peace: and, except for the due process of law clause of Amendment XIV,
it is the most important limitation imposed by the Constitution on the
exercise of State power. The latter, or restrictive, operation of the
clause was long the more important one from the point of view of
Constitutional Law. Of the approximately 1400 cases which reached the
Supreme Court under the clause prior to 1900, the overwhelming
proportion stemmed from State legislation.[307] It resulted that, with
an important exception to be noted in a moment, the guiding lines in
construction of the clause were initially laid down from the point of
view of its operation as a curb on State power, rather than of its
operation as a source of national power; and the consequence of this was
that the word "commerce," as designating the thing to be protected
against State interference, came to dominate the clause, while the word
"regulate" remained in the background.

Definition of Terms: Gibbons _v._ Ogden

"COMMERCE"

The etymology of the word, "cum merce (with merchandise)" carries the
primary meaning of traffic--i.e., "to buy and sell goods; to trade"
(Webster's International). This narrow conception was replaced in the
great leading case of Gibbons _v._ Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), by a much
broader one, on which interpretation of the clause has been patterned
ever since. The case arose out of a series of acts of the legislature of
New York, passed between the years 1798 and 1811, which conferred upon
Livingston and Fulton the exclusive right to navigate the waters of that
State with steam-propelled vessels. Gibbons challenged the monopoly by
sending from Elizabethtown, New Jersey, into the Hudson in the State of
New York two steam vessels which had been licensed and enrolled to
engage in the coasting trade under an act passed by Congress in 1793.
Counsel for Ogden (an assignee of Livingston and Fulton) argued that
since Gibbons' vessels carried only passengers between New Jersey and
New York, they were not engaged in traffic and hence not in "commerce"
in the sense of the Constitution. This argument C