aid:

"Beyond all question the transportation of freights or of
the subjects of commerce for the purpose of exchange or sale
is a constituent of commerce itself. This has never been
doubted, and probably the transportation of articles of
trade from one State to another was the prominent idea in
the minds of the framers of the Constitution when to
Congress was committed the power to regulate commerce among
the several States.... It would be absurd to suppose that
the transmission of the subjects of trade from the seller to
the buyer, or from the place of production to market, was
not contemplated, for without that there could be no
consummated trade with foreign nations or among the States."

Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9 Wheaten, 196, construed
the words "power to regulate" as follows:

"This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete
in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and
acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the
Constitution."

It is a strange fact that during the first eighty years of the
Government's existence Congress did not exert its power to regulate the
conduct of common carriers engaged in interstate transportation. The
first act regulating such carriers was passed in July, 1866. It
authorized railroad companies chartered by the States to carry
passengers, freights, etc., "on their way from any State to another
State, and to receive compensation therefor, and to connect with roads
of other States so as to form continuous lines for transportation of the
same to the place of destination." The passage of this act, it should be
remembered, was urged by the railroad companies themselves. Seven years
later an act was passed providing that "no railway within the United
States, whose road forms any part of a line or road over which cattle,
sheep, swine or other animals shall be conveyed from one State to
another, or the owners or masters of steam, sailing or other vessels
carrying or transporting cattle, sheep or swine or other animals from
one State to another, shall confine the same in cars, boats or vessels
of any description for a longer period than twenty-eight consecutive
hours, without unloading the same for water, rest and feeding, for a
period of at least five consecutive hours, unless prevented from so
unloading by storm or accidental causes."