Quote:
Originally Posted by TristansMommy
Promoting the general welfare!
Oh and I suppose Jefferson was throwing out the constitution when he introduced the idea of public school supported by founding fathers including Washington
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What we are talking about TM is, what is and what is not within the powers granted to Congress by our Constitution. I agree with Jefferson that providing education to children so they may read, write and do math is of great importance to a nation. But the question remains,
who is legally responsible for that education under our constitutionally limited system of government?
Under
The Massachusetts Law of 1642 the parents of children were legally responsible for providing their children’s education.
Now, getting back to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, which you seem to attach your own meaning to, what did our founding fathers intend by these words?
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense 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; “
The most fundamental rule of constitutional law is stated as follows:
”
The fundamental principle of constitutional construction is that effect must be given to the intent of the framers of the organic law and of the people adopting it. This is the polestar in the construction of constitutions, all other principles of construction are only rules or guides to aid in the determination of the intention of the constitution’s framers.”
Now, with reference to the phrase “general welfare” what did those who framed and ratified our Constitution mean with these words during the framing and ratification debates?
Let us look at the documented intentions concerning these words.
Madison, in No. 41 Federalist, explaining the meaning of the general welfare clause to gain the approval of the proposed constitution, states the following:
"It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes...to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and the 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 defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor [the anti federalists] for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction...But what color can this objection have, when a specification of the object alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not ever separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?...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...But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning...is an absurdity."
Likewise, in the Virginia ratification Convention Madison explains the general welfare phrase in the following manner so as to gain ratification of the constitution:
"the powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction."[3 Elliots 95]
[also see Nicholas, 3 Elliot 443 regarding the general welfare clause, which he pointed out
"was united, not to the general power of legislation, but to the particular power of laying and collecting taxes...."]
Even Hamilton, who changed his tune
after the constitution was ratified, says in Federalist 83, in reference to the general welfare clause, that
"...the power of Congress...shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended..."
Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 83 are also in harmony with that of Jefferson:
"Our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark that divides the Federalists from the Republicans, that Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provided 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 power is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money." (letter from Jefferson to Gallatin, June 16th, 1817)
Similarly , George Mason, in the Virginia ratification Convention informs the convention
"The Congress should have power to provide for the general welfare of the Union, I grant. But I wish a clause in the Constitution, with respect to all powers which are not granted, that they are retained by the states. Otherwise the power of providing for the general welfare may be perverted to its destruction.". SEE:
3 Elliots 442
For this very reason the Tenth Amendment was quickly ratified, to intentionally put to rest any question whatsoever regarding the phrase general welfare and thereby cut off the pretext to allow Congress to extended its powers via the wording “promote the general welfare“.
“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.”
And this brings us to the following line of reasoning. If the Anti Federalist feared the general welfare wording would create a general and unlimited legislative power and were against such power being granted to Congress, and, the Federalists assured the Anti-Federalists that such an interpretation was not within the intended meaning of the clause in question, who can be pointed to as being an advocate of granting this unlimited power to Congress during the framing and ratification of our Constitution?
Expounding upon our Constitution is not a matter of “interpretation” as some would have us believe…it is a task of “documentation”! Enemies of our constitutional system wish to ignore the recorded intentions for which our Constitution [each article, section, clause and amendment] was adopted in order to then be free to make the Constitution mean whatever they wish it to mean.
Now, back to the real question:
under what article, section, clause or amendment of our federal Constitution have the people of the various States granted a power to Congress to tax for, spend on and regulate their personal health care needs?
JWK
“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now. “___ South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437 (1905)