If Congress can prohibit interstate commerce in any article with its authority to “regulate,” then it can prohibit interstate commerce in all articles (e.g., food and fuel, maybe even electricity). (I see no exceptions in the Commerce Clause that would make this impossible.) It is theoretically possible for a group of states to cut off another state or group of states by prohibiting interstate commerce with that state or those states.

The authors of the Constitution foresaw a similar problem and nipped it in the bud when they wrote “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” A majority of Senators cannot gang up on a minority of Senators and reduce the representation of those latter Senators’ states in the Senate. Had they imagined that the Commerce Clause could be used to prohibit interstate commerce with a state or group of states (say, to coerce them into compliance with an unpopular policy), they surely would have made safeguards to prevent such an abuse. Because such safeguards do not exist, one can conclude that the authors of the Constitution never contemplated an interpretation of the word “regulate” to include the authority to “prohibit.” Such a power would permit blocks of states with a majority of representation in Congress to strangle minority states into submission. Does anyone seriously believe the Constitution authorizes such an outrage?

Seems to me that Wickard should be challenged:
1. SCOTUS’ redefining of “regulate” to mean “prohibit” is plainly illogical. If you “prohibit” something, there’s nothing to “regulate” (make regular), so you can only do one, prohibit or regulate, not both. (Imagine Congress prohibiting all interstate commerce. Now there’s nothing left to regulate. Once something is prohibited, it can no longer be regulated.) Likewise, if “regulate” means “prohibit,” that would restrict the authority of Congress to the ability to prohibit different forms of commerce, and would strip Congress of the authority to do every other thing it does with respect to interstate commerce, including the authority to “make it regular” (especially if “regulate” is defined in such a manner to preclude the definition “make regular”). This interpretation makes nonsense of the purpose of giving Congress exclusive subject matter/legislative jurisdiction over interstate commerce.
2. History demonstrates conclusively that Congress did not (and does not) have the authority to “prohibit” interstate commerce in any article. When Congress wanted to impose prohibition, it understood its limits under both the Commerce Clause and the “general welfare” clause. It knew the former didn’t allow it to prohibit interstate commerce in any article, and it knew that it couldn’t appeal to the latter. This is apparent, because Congress appealed to neither, and instead went the hard (and proper) route and amended the Constitution. Obviously, Congress knows its own authority under the Constitution (at a minimum – it is constantly exceeding its boundaries as well). If the Congress knew in the 1920s that the Commerce Clause didn’t permit it to “prohibit” commerce in a particular class of goods, that’s strong evidence that no such authority exists within the Constitution, making the Wickard court plainly wrong.

It was all fun and games when the feds decided to make various narcotics illegal and prohibit interstate commerce in them. But now we see the real danger inherent in allowing them such authority. Is the cat out of the bag? Not necessarily. It wouldn’t hurt to bring a well-reasoned and researched case to SCOTUS and overturn Wickard. We won’t know if it is possible if we don’t try. And if we do try and it doesn’t work, it will be just one more proof that the system is broken and something radical needs to be done to put it back together again.