During John Marshall's tenure on the court, it was read broadly in favor of Congress. But then we had the era of tortured readings of parts of the Constitution

During John Marshall's tenure on the court, it was read broadly in favor of Congress. But then we had the era of tortured readings of parts of the Constitution through which the Supreme Court basically tried to enforce a particular economic policy on the entire country. This was a time when progressive reformers were pushing for labor standards, bans on child labor, minimum wages and all the things we mostly take for granted today. And the Court hated that stuff philosophically, so they looked for ways to kill it. Sometimes the commerce clause would be read narrowly (if it could be used to strike down a federal regulation). Sometimes it would be read broadly but against the states (if it could strike down a state regulation). The Fourteenth Amendment was another popular choice of text at the time, with the Court reading it as having meant to establish not the equality before the law of black and white citizens, but rather a sanctity of contract and a condemnation of economic regulation beyond the wildest dreams of modern libertarians. This was the so-called "Lochner era" named after the keystone case of the Court's economic policy. The swing back to broad Congressional regulatory power began with Franklin Roosevelt threatening to "pack" the Supreme Court with judges who would support him, leading the conservative members of the Court to realize they would lose no matter what and finally starting to allow some economic regulation to occur. Then later in the 20th century the Court mostly stopped questioning assertions of the commerce power, except for some (in)famous flip-flops led by Scalia as he tried to find Commerce Clause justifications for striking down federal gun control while keeping federal drug prohibition.