🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Simpson wrote:

>>Whoa!  Not the preamble -- article I, section 8 -- "provide for the
>>general welfare."  Perhaps it's you who are ignorant of the constitution.
>
>There you go again with your errors.  The "general welfare" clause
>is a qualification of the power to tax, which is the power granted to
>the federal government in Article 1, Section 8.  Those who wrote the
>Constitution knew it, and even made it plain for all in the Federalist
>Papers -- it is no general grant of power.  Those who claim it is such
>a grant are ignorant or liars and they flunk Constitutionality 101; the
>"general welfare" clause and the "commerce clause" obviously can't
>be misused as you believe they can.  That's among the easiest of
>bogus claims to annihilate.

Madison lays it to rest if you're unable to face hearing it from me.

(Note that back then, the critics -- wisely -- feared the central government
would grow too big and assume too much power.  Those like Parker have
helped to prove the wisdom that the Anti-Federalists possessed, with his
distressful absurdities [to paraphrase Madison].)

Madison:

..................................................................................................................

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have
grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language
in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power
"to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts,
and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United
States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power
which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or
general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under
which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a
misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers
of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions
just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it;
though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form
of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to
destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury; or even to regulate the
course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly
expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects
alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even
separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of
the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning
to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be
excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more
doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the
clear and precise expressions be denied by signification whatsoever?

For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted,
if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general
power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase,
and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of
an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general
meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead,
is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging
either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution,
we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. 

......................................................................................................................


Dave Simpson