Instead of studying, I just read this post at The Volokh Conspiracy on how the new-fangled health-care mandate is unconstitutional.  There is a lot of (what I perceive to be) technical legal ideas in it (that I don't understand completely), but the logic interests me.
The really short version of the post is that the Supreme Court would not be looking at the constitutionality of the mandate in terms of how the drafters of the Constitution conceived of the government's powers.  Instead, the Court will evaluate constitutionality of the mandate based on either: 1) if the mandate is consistent with what the Supreme Court has ruled before, or 2) public opinion of the mandate and personal political ideology (preference for the size and power of government).
"And this [option 2) above] would seem to be the epitome of the Rule of Men, as opposed to the Rule of Law."