Constitutional Government and the "General Welfare" Clause

Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution reads,

The Congress shall have 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; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

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;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

What we have here is a list of duties that the Congress is responsible for. If you don't feel like reading it line-by-line (although you really should) then the jist of it is that Congress has the power to tax, pay national debt, borrow money, regulate trade between the US and other countries, regulate trade between the states, establish rules on citizenship, create laws concerning bankruptcy, coin money, establish a national set of weights and measurements, punish those that counterfeit money, establish post offices and post roads, to grant patents and copyrights, establish courts lower than the Supreme Court, punish crimes committed on the seas, to declare war and grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, raise an army and a navy, call on the militia, make the laws for Washington, DC, and to make whatever law is necessary to carry out the named powers.





This all seems to be fairly straightforward but there are many laws on the books that go beyond these powers. This is because of an misconception of what part of Article One, Section Eight means.

The Congress shall have 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; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Many in our government have taken this part of Article One, Section Eight to mean that they're allowed to pass whatever law they want as long as they have the best interest of the United States in mind when said law is passed. This is not the case, and it's proven by the Tenth Amendment.

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.

In case that's not clear, it means that any power not given to the federal government is reserved to the States. Had it been the purpose of the Founders for Congress to enact whatever law they wanted, the Tenth Amendment would have never existed because there would be nothing that would be reserved to the States.

Not only do we have the Tenth Amendment, but we have the words of the Founders themselves. In a letter to James Robertson, James Madison, often referred to as the "Father of the Constitution" said,

With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.

Here we have the actual words of one of the men involved in the writing of the Constitution, stating that taking the phrase "general welfare" in a literal sense would change the Constitution to something it's creators never intended it to be. In response to a bill that would subsidize cod fishermen in the very first year of our Republic, Madison said,

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." 

Here we have a repeated insistence that the "General Welfare" clause does not mean that Congress can take whatever actions it deems fit. In a bit of eery foreshadowing, Madison predicts the federal government takeover of education and the creation of the welfare state we live in now.

Jefferson chose to explain general welfare this way,

 “The laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”

He reiterated this in a letter to Albert Gallatin, saying,

"Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. " 

I know that this is a topic that many have taken up before me, and I'm sure that many have done a better job explaining the connection between constitutional government, general welfare, and the Tenth Amendment. However, I hope I've done a decent enough job explaining the link between the three and the intention of the founders. Any candidate for office that does not subscribe to this interpretation of the "General Welfare" clause is certainly not a true constitutional conservative and therefore, not deserving of your vote.