—this court, after saying that the phrase could never be applied to transactions wholly internal, significantly added: "Nor can it be properly concluded, that, because the products of domestic enterprise in agriculture or manufactures, or in the arts, may ultimately become the subjects of foreign commerce, that the control of the means or the encouragements by which …

—"must signify commerce which, in some sense, is necessarily connected with these Nations, transactions which either immediately or at some stage of their progress must be extraterritorial."

Th [e] design and object of that power, as evinced in the history of the Constitution, was to establish a perfect equality amongst the several States as to commercial rights, and to prevent unjust and invidious distinctions, which local jealousies or local and partial interests might be disposed to introduce and maintain. These were the views pressed upon the public attention …

—upholding a state-created steamboat monopoly because it involved regulation of wholly internal commerce

For nearly a century thereafter, the Court's Commerce Clause decisions dealt but rarely with the extent of Congress' power, and almost entirely with the Commerce Clause as a limit on state legislation that discriminated against interstate commerce.

A pretension as far reaching as this would extend to contracts between citizen and citizen of the same State, would control the pursuits of the planter, the grazier, the manufacturer, the mechanic, the immense operations of the collieries and the mines, for there is not one of these avocations the results of which may not become the subjects of foreign commerce, and be …

The design and object of the clause of the Constitution under consideration was to establish a perfect equality between the States, and to prevent unjust discriminations,'& c.; and in accordance therewith have been the expositions of this court in the decisions quoted by counsel, &c.

—b) Although that commerce which is carried on entirely within the limits of a State, and does not extend to or affect other States, is excluded from federal control

State; and the interminable trouble would be presented, that whether the one power or the other should exercise the authority in question would be determined, not by any general or intelligible rule, but by the secret and changeable intention of the producer in each and every act of production. A situation more paralyzing to the state governments, and more provocative …

—and may authorize the building of bridges over non-navigable streams, and otherwise regulate the navigation of the strictly internal waters of the State—such as do not, by themselves or by connection with other waters, form a continuous highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other States or foreign countries.