Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/533

 CH. XV.] our notions upon commercial subjects. Such was confessedly the notion of the different states in the Union under the confederation, and before the formation of the present constitution. One known object of the policy of the manufacturing states then was, the protection and encouragement of their manufactures by regulations of commerce. And the exercise of this power was a source of constant difficulty and discontent; not because improper of itself; but because it bore injuriously upon the commercial arrangements of other states. The want of uniformity in the regulations of commerce was a source of perpetual strife and dissatisfaction, of inequalities, and rivalries, and retaliations among the states. When the constitution was framed, no one ever imagined, that the power of protection of manufactures was to be taken away from all the states, and yet not delegated to the Union. The very suggestion would of itself have been fatal to the adoption of the constitution. The manufacturing states would never have acceded to it upon any such terms; and they never could, without the power, have safely acceded to it; for it would have sealed their ruin. The same reasoning would apply to the agricultural states; for the regulation of commerce, with a view to encourage domestic agriculture, is just as important, and just as vital to the interests of the nation, and just as much an application of the powder, as the protection or encouragement of manufactures. It would have been strange indeed, if the people of the United States had been solicitous solely to advance and encourage commerce, with a total disregard of the interests of agriculture and manufactures, which had, at the time of the adoption of the