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They aren't talking about 'welfare benefits' for everyone.
That is the Madisonian interpretation, yes (as I mentioned in my post, by the way).
Others, such as Alexander Hamilton (and a great deal of Congresses, presidents, and SCOTUS cases), have argued that the clause is not limited only to those specific duties.
According to James Madison, the clause authorized Congress to spend money, but only to carry out the powers and duties specifically enumerated in the subsequent clauses of Article I, Section 8, and elsewhere in the Constitution, not to meet the seemingly infinite needs of the general welfare. Alexander Hamilton maintained that the clause granted Congress the power to spend without limitation for the general welfare of the nation. The winner of this debate was not declared for 150 years.
In United States v. Butler, 56 S. Ct. 312, 297 U.S. 1, 80 L. Ed. 477 (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a federal agricultural spending program because a specific congressional power over agricultural production appeared nowhere in the Constitution. According to the Court in Butler, the spending program invaded a right reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.
Though the Court decided that Butler was consistent with Madison's philosophy of limited federal government, it adopted Hamilton's interpretation of the General Welfare Clause, which gave Congress broad powers to spend federal money. It also established that determination of the general welfare would be left to the discretion of Congress. In its opinion, the Court warned that to challenge a federal expense on the ground that it did not promote the general welfare would "naturally require a showing that by no reasonable possibility can the challenged legislation fall within the wide range of discretion permitted to the Congress." The Court then obliquely confided,"[H]ow great is the extent of that range … we need hardly remark." "[D]espite the breadth of the legislative discretion," the Court continued, "our duty to hear and to render judgment remains." The Court then rendered the federal agricultural spending program at issue invalid under the Tenth Amendment.
With Butler as precedent, the Supreme Court's interest in determining whether congressional spending promotes the general welfare has withered. In South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 107 S. Ct. 2793, 97 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1987), the Court reviewed legislation allowing the secretary of transportation to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds from states that did not raise their legal drinking age to twenty-one. In holding that the statute was a valid use of congressional spending power, the Court in Dole questioned "whether 'general welfare' is a judicially enforceable restriction at all."
Congress appropriates money for a seemingly endless number of national interests, ranging from federal courts, policing, imprisonment, and national security to social programs, environmental protection, and education. No federal court has struck down a spending program on the ground that it failed to promote the general welfare. However, federal spending programs have been struck down on other constitutional grounds.
Further reader
Rosenthal, Albert J. 1987. "Conditional Federal Spending and the Constitution." Stanford Law Review 39.
The quote you referenced did NOT say the founders envisioned a court that would interpret the Constitution, rather that it would determine whether the laws enacted by congress were written in accordance to that Constitution.
Marbury v Madison was NOT a bastardization of the Constitution in the basic decision. Moreover when the Chief Justice stated "It is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the law is," he did NOT state "It is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the Constitution means,"
There is a HUGE and distinct difference. Their job was to judge whether the law was constitutional, NOT what they interpreted the Constitution to say.
And often to know whether a law is constitutional or not requires one to interpret the language of the Constitution. Hence why the SCOTUS themselves consider that one of their duties.
The Constitution of the United States is a carefully balanced document. It is designed to provide for a national government sufficiently strong and flexible to meet the needs of the republic, yet sufficiently limited and just to protect the guaranteed rights of citizens; it permits a balance between society's need for order and the individual's right to freedom. To assure these ends, the Framers of the Constitution created three independent and coequal branches of government. That this Constitution has provided continuous democratic government through the periodic stresses of more than two centuries illustrates the genius of the American system of government.
The complex role of the Supreme Court in this system derives from its authority to invalidate legislation or executive actions which, in the Court's considered judgment, conflict with the Constitution. This power of "judicial review" has given the Court a crucial responsibility in assuring individual rights, as well as in maintaining a "living Constitution" whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated new situations.
While the function of judicial review is not explicitly provided in the Constitution, it had been anticipated before the adoption of that document. Prior to 1789, state courts had already overturned legislative acts which conflicted with state constitutions. Moreover, many of the Founding Fathers expected the Supreme Court to assume this role in regard to the Constitution; Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, for example, had underlined the importance of judicial review in the Federalist Papers, which urged adoption of the Constitution.
Hamilton had written that through the practice of judicial review the Court ensured that the will of the whole people, as expressed in their Constitution, would be supreme over the will of a legislature, whose statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the people. And Madison had written that constitutional interpretation must be left to the reasoned judgment of independent judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the political process. If every constitutional question were to be decided by public political bargaining, Madison argued, the Constitution would be reduced to a battleground of competing factions, political passion and partisan spirit.
Despite this background the Court's power of judicial review was not confirmed until 1803, when it was invoked by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. In this decision, the Chief Justice asserted that the Supreme Court's responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of its sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. That oath could not be fulfilled any other way. "It is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the law is," he declared.
In retrospect, it is evident that constitutional interpretation and application were made necessary by the very nature of the Constitution.The Founding Fathers had wisely worded that document in rather general terms leaving it open to future elaboration to meet changing conditions. As Chief Justice Marshall noted in McCulloch v. Maryland, a constitution that attempted to detail every aspect of its own application "would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. . . . Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves."
You obviously disagree with what the duties of the SCOTUS are. Why don't you take it up with them? Go run for office? Write a petition?
Sure... Quote precedent created over 100 years AFTER the Constitution was written, when the court was already actively engaged in bastardizing the INTENT of the Constitution by interpreting its meaning. That's the exact point Bent and I made about the bastardization of the 2nd Amendment which just as well say the right of the people over 21 to wear short sleeves, but only while in the military and doing actual military stuff, not while on leave, shall NOT be infringed.
AGAIN... the courts, according to YOU, would have this power and authority because after all, they can just interpret whatever they want into that insignificant text on parchment.
Sure... Quote precedent created over 100 years AFTER the Constitution was written, when the court was already engaged in bastardizing the INTENT of the Constitution by interpreting its meaning. That's the exact point Bent and I made about the bastardization of the 2nd Amendment which just as well say the right of the people over 21 to wear short sleeves, but only while in the military and doing actual military stuff, not while on leave, shall NOT be infringed.
AGAIN... the courts, according to YOU, would have this power and authority because after all, they can just interpret whatever they want into that insignificant text on parchment.
Pffft!
According to SCOTUS, not me. Why do you keep making this personal?
I'm just explaining the reality of our country as it is. You don't like it, obviously.
You obviously disagree with what the duties of the SCOTUS are. Why don't you take it up with them? Go run for office? Write a petition?
Using YOUR claim that the court has an authority to interpret the Constitution, can the Supreme Court declare ANY part of the Constitution unconstitutional based on that interpretation?
Seriously... Let's say SCOTUS, when reviewing a case that requires judgement from more than one area of the Constitution, interprets that one part of the Constitution violates another part, can SCOTUS declare any part of the Constitution unconstitutional?
Using YOUR logic and YOUR claim that the Supreme Court has the authority to interpret the meaning and intent of the Constitution, SURELY this MUST be possible.
AGAIN, using YOUR claim that the court has an authority to interpret the Constitution, I can already picture the Supreme Court some day declaring the 2nd Amendment violates the intent of the "general welfare" clause.
Would this NOT be possible if what you claim was constitutional?
AGAIN... wordsmithing, outright LIES and double jointed verbal gymnastics with such unbelievable contortions the likes of which have never been seen in real life gymnastics are all progressive folks have to defend the unconstitutional bastardization of the Constitution.
They aren't talking about 'welfare benefits' for everyone.
Well, sure they are!
Post Roads, Lighthouses, aids to navigation - all take tax money and -in some sense - enrich the rest of us. Patents and Copyrights are "exclusives" - or we could call them "corporate welfare"....
And, of course, the first sentence:
"and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States;"
We can debate General Welfare til the cows come home. Currently it includes GPS. Do you believe that is a good use?
The last thing I am going to say on the subject in this thread is IF the actual words and INTENT of the founding fathers who wrote those words are not adequate, and the courts determine that in their interpretation those words mean something else, all that need be done is to follow Article 5 and amend the Constitution.
That's all they have to do and they can change it to say whatever they want or need. However... without an amendment, NONE of the branches of government have the enumerated power to change either the words OR the INTENT of the founding fathers, as they expressly wrote those words in the Constitution.
Amend it and do whatever you want. Pass an amendment, IF you can, that authorizes redistribution of wealth to provide welfare for those who won't earn their own. Then and only then will it be constitutional.
This very concept, the fact that the Constitution could be amended with all the difficulty that entails, was the most significant amount of brilliance the founding fathers left us, We The People, to guarantee our LIBERTY. But you know you can't get a redistribution of wealth amendment passed, so instead you use judicial interpretation of a document they have no enumerated authority to interpret in order to foist your progressive sickness upon all Americans.
LIBERTY is DEAD.
Last edited by KS_Referee; 02-24-2017 at 06:36 PM..
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