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Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
Don't get blinded by the term natural law used in the cited law review article. Illinois Central is still good law, and I know of no Supreme Court cases questioning it. I find myself wondering if you've ever even read it.
Congress has only the specific powers enumerated in Article 1 Section 8. The Commerce Clause has been stretched quite a bit, but as noted in U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), that power is not infinitely elastic. But as a bedrock principle of federalism, Congress is irrelevant here. Since the State of Illinois lacks the authority to alienate the waters of Lake Michigan, it cannot delegate that authority to the City of Chicago; nor can it grant that authority to Congress.
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Federalism is a bedrock principle until it's not. For the last 100 years, the Court has reversed the flow of powers as a necessity bc you can't have a weak federal government in a global economy; but more so than that, too often the states just get it wrong, e.g., segregation, pollution, anti-gay legislation, and even those things are tied to the reputation of the U.S. in a global economy.
If Congress really needed to alienate the waters of Lake Michigan, it could do so, and the Court would uphold it based on Commerce or some other powers. Because just like you say, the law is fluid, and these precedents are subject to changing circumstances. That part I really agree with you on. The law is only rational when interpreted vis-a-vis a specific set of facts/context.