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Originally Posted by RightinNYC  That was indeed Madison's interpretation. However, Alexander Hamilton had a much different interpretation arguing that "general welfare" did have the aforementioned broad meaning. The question was unresolved until US v. Butler, where the Supreme Court endorsed Hamilton's view. |
I was not aware of this Supreme Court case; I had to look it up. I strongly disagree with the view that the "general welfare" clause is not "restricted in meaning" by the enumerated powers that follow it.[
1] I think that philosophy is completely contradictory to the US Constitution. First of all, if Congress is capable of creating its own powers, it must also be capable of taking power away from the states, for if we follow the 10th amendment, a power gained by Congress is a power lost by the people.
Second of all, the very
wording of the 10th amendment refutes any assertion that Congress can give itself power. The 10th amendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."[
2] I can't emphasize that enough. The 10th amendment makes it abundantly clear that only the
Constitution can give Congress power and no one else. If they want more power, we have an amendment process for that.
And even if we put this aside, the court never defines what the "general welfare" means. People seem to think "general" is defined as "miscellaneous." In other words, they think the "general welfare" means government is supposed to aid people in any of their random problems, and therefore, promote their "general" welfare. As I argued in my original post, this is NOT what the phrase means, and is not even a valid defintion of "general." Dictionary.com defines "general" as "of or pertaining to
all persons or things belonging to a group or category" (my emphasis added).[
3] Clearly, the "general welfare" clause is trying to prohibit government from aiding special interest groups. It's as clear as day!
