3


Current of Commerce Cases
 
I disagree with question 5 because I feel the situation is different, which is why the decisions in the Swift and Stafford cases seem to go against the other decisions of the Court during the time period.  The regulations under question in those cases were not dealing directly with the stockyards or slaughterhouses, but how the cattle got to the stockyards.  At the time the owners of the slaughterhouses were attempting to buy the stockyards, and thus directly control where the cattle were brought in from and how much they were then sold to the slaughterhouses (themselves) for.  Thus, the slaughterhouses were actually controlling the movement of the cattle from the time they left the farm they were raised on.  That is why I believe the Court upheld that law, not because of the nature of the business, but because the slaughterhouses were trying to control the stream of commerce.  Unless the pig slaughterhouses were attempting to control the entirety of the process, I do not believe the Court would have upheld the laws if they were only trying to regulate the slaughterhouses.
This is a beautiful example of the kind of answer that a teacher finds tantalizing and frustrating. It’s tantalizing because it contains the seeds of an A+ answer. It’s frustrating because the seeds aren’t watered.