BUT FOR ONE WORD

We know that the Founders favored a small federal government, limiting the areas of our lives over which it was to have authority.  We know, too, that today we have a massive federal bureaucracy involved in virtually aspect of our lives.  How did that happen? What could possibly account for our getting the precise government the Founders rejected?

I believe it was one word...one erroneous word used by the Founders in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution.  Congress had the power, wrote the Founders, "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States and with Indian tribes"...the so-called Commerce Clause.

The erroneous word used was "regulate".   With 13 competing individual States, and some trade moving between States, it was understandable that the Founders would anticipate that there could be and likely would be conflicts and disagreements.  What the Founders should have written, and what they likely intended, was that the federal judiciary would resolve those interstate disputes.  That would have been appropriate since maintaining an independent judiciary to peacefully resolve disputes is one of the clear functions of our government.  The word "regulate" was a totally different can of beans.

Roget's Thesaurus lists the following words as synonyms for "regulate":  govern, wield authority, command, manage, supervise, stand over...and the government has done all of that and more.  Compounding the problem has been the judicial extension of the meaning of "commerce" from its original intention "trade" to "any interchange"...which subsumes all relationships between people...which means "our total lives".  A single nail imported from another State and used in the building of a skyscraper made totally from materials in the State where it is located, and built solely by workers from within that same state, has judicially been ruled to bring that skyscraper within the scope of the Commerce Clause and the control of the federal government.  With the scope and domain of its authority all-encompassing, the federal government grew like a dinosaur, and is still growing.

It is not likely that the Supreme Court will ever redefine "regulate" to its original intended narrower meaning.  That would probably have to be done by a Constitutional Amendment.  Which is also not likely.

Game, set, match?