Advertising at the Crossroads (RLE Advertising)

Chapter 4

CONSTITUTIONAL SOURCES OF FEDERAL REGULATORY POWER

 

One of the aims of the preceding chapters has been to demonstrate that modern national advertising, as a major factor in our economy and social existence, is of comparatively recent origin. Advertising was as unknown to the framers of the Constitution as the railroad, radio, television, or the direct primary election.

In the examination of the constitutional sources of power upon which federal regulation of advertising is based, one must always remember that our constitutional system has relied for its strength not so much on the particular provisions of the Constitution as in their adaptation to the new, always chang-ing, and ever more complex conditions of American life. The courts ...