ok so, those definitions were not tacked on afterwards, they were really the reason for the Constitution to be written in the first place. What was tacked on afterwards was the Bill of Rights.
In fact for any judge familiar with the Articles of Confederation and the history thereof, which I would hope was every judge, the interpretation of the paragraph you cite would be completely obvious and pertaining only to the states, because some of the original problems between the states that caused the Constitution to be written was states doing such things as entering into treaties with foreign nations, coining their own money (making trade between states more difficult than needed), etc. etc.
Basically the paragraph is saying "all the stuff you guys were doing or maybe thinking about doing, stops now!" - I say "maybe thinking about doing" because unsure about letters of Marque although I could certainly see it having been done by some of the more haughty states at the time - say New York or Virginia.
The reason for the writing of the Constitution was the Articles of Confederation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation being rather problematic for running a nation.
In fact for any judge familiar with the Articles of Confederation and the history thereof, which I would hope was every judge, the interpretation of the paragraph you cite would be completely obvious and pertaining only to the states, because some of the original problems between the states that caused the Constitution to be written was states doing such things as entering into treaties with foreign nations, coining their own money (making trade between states more difficult than needed), etc. etc.
Basically the paragraph is saying "all the stuff you guys were doing or maybe thinking about doing, stops now!" - I say "maybe thinking about doing" because unsure about letters of Marque although I could certainly see it having been done by some of the more haughty states at the time - say New York or Virginia.