You might not know Roscoe Philburn, but he is very famous in constitutional law.

Philburn was a fifth generation farmer from Montgomery County, Ohio.

He raised dairy cattle, chickens, and wheat.

And in 1941, he harvested 462 bushels.

His story is just not that exciting.

But it gets better.

We're even going to talk about drugs in a few minutes.

The problem for Filburn was that he was one of the

farmers subjected to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. That was an act signed

by FDR and it was part of the Roosevelt administration's efforts to provide price and income

supports for American farmers.

The country was in the middle of the Great Depression and it was especially tough on farmers.

The 1938 Act helped do things like stabilize prices for the national market and things like wheat and corn.

And it told farmers how much they could grow and how much they couldn't.

And the reason was simple. If farmers produced too much, prices would crater.

So the Act worked this way. It wasn't just gentle encouragement. Under the

federal law, farmers were supposed to grow only a certain amount of weed no more at all

What would happen if they grew more than they were allowed to they'd be subjected to a penalty that's exactly what happened to Roscoe Philburn. The 1938

acts said he could plant 11 acres of wheat and that was about 20 bushels an acre.

He planted 23 acres instead and grew 462 bushels of wheat.

Roscoe was such a bawler.

And so for growing more than he was allowed to, Philburn faced a fine.

...