Federal Incorporation

We have traced in the foregoing part the principal cases bearing directly upon the federal power of incorporation. To gain a just perspective of the attitude the court may take upon the constitutionality of an act requiring uniform federal incorporation of all businesses engaged in interstate commerce it is necessary to complete our review by an examination of the trend of the court’s decisions involving other portions of the field of commerce regulation. The construction placed upon acts exerting other forms of regulation will not be so conclusive to our inquiry as the adjudication of the cases reviewed in the foregoing section, but by exhibiting the general trend of the judicial reasoning upon the subject of the commercial power it will provide us with a wider basis of judgment. We shall first examine the development of the Congressional control over foreign commerce, and following, its regulation of the various instrumentalities and objects of interstate commerce.