"There can be little doubt about the principle purpose of the Commerce Clause. Under the Articles of Confederation, state legislatures had become the dens of special-interest legislation aimed at protecting local manufactures and sellers from out-of-state competitors. The result was a tangle of state-by-state tariffs and regulations that impeded the free flow of commerce among the states, to the detriment of all. Only a national [federal] government could break the logjam. Indeed, the need to do so was one of the primary reasons behind the call for a new constitution.

The Commerce Clause was aimed, then, at giving Congress, rather the states, the power to regulate commerce among the states. The purpose was thus not so much to convey a power ‘to regulate’- in the affirmative sense in which we use the term today- as a power ‘to make regular’ the commerce that might take place among the states.

At the bottom, then, the Commerce Clause was intended to enable Congress to break down state barriers, to prevent states from restricting the free flow of commerce among themselves."

During the debates in the Federal {Constitutional} Convention Oliver Ellsworth stated:

"The power of regulating trade between the States will protect them against each other "

James Madison reiterated this point:

"[P]erhaps the best guard against an abuse of the power of the States on this subject, was the right in the General Government to regulate trade between State and State."

Looks like Mr. Pilon nailed it.