Quote Originally Posted by Article 1, section 8
"provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
I thought that is what you meant. There are numerous problems attempting to use that wording from Article I, Section 8. Please allow me to explain what I mean:
1. The Articles of Confederation had a very similar clause and it read, "III.
"The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever." The question is whether or not the Continental Congress could take on education for the nation. The answer is no. Since that is not true, then common defense and general welfare may have had another reason for being stated in both documents.
2. After the clause you quoted, what else do we find in Article 1, Section 8:
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
I put some of the above in bold. They are the ones that deal with defense. If the government is to provide for the common defense, why did the authors of the Constitution add specific clauses dealing with common defense? To establish Post Offices and Post Roads could be considered to be for the general welfare, Right?
3. James Madison was at the Constitutional Convention. I was not there and I am guessing that you weren't either. What did Madison say about this clause? In Federalist 41, he stated the following:
"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."
Can we agree that "...provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States..." does not apply to education?
