Wickard v. filburn

GM 545 Business Economics

Project 1

Fall Session, 2012

Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the United States Constitution states that the United States Congress shall have the power ―”to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” (Johnson, 2004) Adam Smith, laissez faire and free trade came to dominate economic thinking and the Commerce Clause draws its original meaning from the preceding mercantilist tradition (Watts, 2007). This is, in the Constitution “regulation of commerce” was used, almost exclusively, as a cover of words for specific mercantilist proposals related to deep-water shipping and foreign trade. The intent was to give Congress the power to regulate commerce were restrictions on international trade giving subsidy or protection to favored domestic merchants or punishing imports or foreign producers (Johnson, 2004). In Wickard v Filburn (1942), Roscoe Filburn an Ohio wheat farmer, pursuant to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, was required to grow wheat not in excess of a fixed quota. Filburn has exceeded his allotment for the 1941 wheat crop, when he grew additional wheat for his personal consumption, which under the Act were marketing excess and subject to penalty (Watts, 2007). Filburn asserted that what he produced and consumed on his private property did not concern the federal government, his surplus wheat should not have been regulated by the commerce clause because his intent for the extra wheat was for his own personal consumption rather than selling it on the market (Pushaw, 2005). However the Court rejected Filburn’s argument and determined that, under the Commerce Clause, Filburn’s use of the marginal bushel of wheat on his farm was an act of interstate commerce and thus subject to federal regulation (Rahbar, 2011). The Court concurred that Filburn’s own contribution to the demand for wheat may be