Common Defense & General Welfare The Meaning is Clear

27 Dec 2009 | Jacquerie

[Jacquerie]

Much fuss is made at this forum regarding the presumed haziness of the “common Defense and general Welfare” clause and the enumerated powers that follow in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. If you are not sure, or think this section is ambiguous, or actually does grant unlimited power to Congress you are in wide company. You are confused at best, but at least you have lots of company.

Our 18th Century Framers were precise grammarians. It took months of often heated debate in the stuffy, hot, State House in Philly to thrash out every concept, idea, detail, clause and yes, punctuation, that ended up in our Beloved Constitution. From James Madison’s notes, there is no question that every single detail had first to pass a committee composed of a few members, and then survive withering examination of the committee of all state delegates.

First, look at Article I Section 8. http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm .

Notice that there are many semicolons and only one period, at the very end of the entire Section. That is right. Section 8 is a single, long sentence. It is also one thought, the enumerated powers of Congress. As any sixth grade private school student and a few government high school grads know, the semicolon is used between closely related main clauses. Thus, there is no disconnect between the declaratory clause (common defense and general welfare) and the enumerated powers which follow. The enumerated powers are components of a single thought, to provide for our common defense and general welfare.

The Framers began with a broad statement, “provide for the common Defense and general Welfare,” and then got into specifics in the same sentence. It is no error or oversight that Article I, Section 8 was written as it was. It was purposely done in order to make sure that a reasonably literate people could not ignore, confuse or abuse its meaning. Congressional powers are strictly limited to those enumerated.

When viewed this way, the words of James Madison in Federalist #41 are perfectly clear: “Nothing is more natural or common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of the 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.”

Even absent Madison’s comments, the grammar, and punctuation combined with long length, unique to Section 8 remove all doubt as to the relationship between the common Defense and general Welfare clause to the enumerated powers that follow.

Those who cannot grasp this concept probably have a graduate Political Science degree, or perhaps are a Supreme Court Justice or a certain 42nd President of the United States and Constitutional Lawyer who wondered what the meaning of the word “is” is.

Or, they could be statists intent on National Socialist Healthcare.

[Jacquerie]

Your thoughts?

[screaminsunshine]

I do not think they had welfare checks back in thise days. They sure did not have food stamps or AFDC. I think they meant secure Borders.

[blackbart.223]

You don’t throw off one yoke only to assume another.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Nice post! I shall add your analysis to my ammo supply for the holiday family arguments ahead . . ,

[Repeal The 17th]

(for reference)
Section 8.
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;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a 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 offenses 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, dockyards, 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.

[Repeal The 17th]

I hope you know I agree with you,
I am puzzled though that if they were such strict grammarians,
why they chose to follow a semi colon with an uppercase letter.
Perhaps the reason is as simple as it ‘looked’ better on the written page...
A good discussion could also be had about the meaning and intent of last phrase regarding the “other powers”.

[ml/nj]

I've posted excerpts from Federalist #41 cited here more than a few times. It is clear that the Framers intended a limited Federal government. Unfortunately what the Framers intended is not what we have today. I can think of a number of reasons and people and things to blame, but it's just as much a reality that we do not have a real Constitution as that we no longer use real money. (Hmmm. There's one thing to blame.) We just have to deal with it, one way or another.

ML/NJ

[rob777]

A very logical explanation. Too bad logic is a commodity in short supply these days.

[Jacquerie]

They did use upper case far more often than we do today.

Not only upper case after the semicolons, but in words peppered throughout in the middle of sentences as well, both in the Constitution and the Declaration.

The last clause in Article I, Section 8 corrected a document wide defect in the Articles of Confederation.

For instance, under the Articles (Section VIII), the states were to provide funds for the “common defense and general welfare” (sound familiar?) in proportion to the value of each state's real estate. The problem was that Congress had no power to compel the states to provide the funds. Why grant authority without the power to implement it? The states knew this and regularly gaffed off their duty and responsibility.

The “make all laws necessary” clause corrected this crippling error in the Articles.

[MosesKnows]

Your thoughts?

A discussion of Article 1, Section 8, cannot be productive without agreement on the intent and meaning of the words "Powers herein granted" in Article 1, Section 1.

There are two questions I ask repeatedly of my Representatives.

Question #1:

Please explain the meaning of the words Powers herein granted as found in Article 1, Section 1. of the Constitution of the United States.

Ref: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Question #2:

Please explain the meaning of the words powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution as found in the tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

Ref: 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.

I am in agreement with Thomas Jefferson’s observation of the general welfare clause. Jefferson said it meant for the Congress to legislate for the general welfare within the powers granted the government by the Constitution.

To quote Jefferson rather to speak for him I offer one of many similar observations from Thomas Jefferson.

3391. GENERAL WELFARE CLAUSE, Interpretation. --

To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare”. For 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. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. [Col 2] It was intended to lace them up strictly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. --

TITLE: National Bank Opinion.
EDITION: Washington ed. vii, 557.
EDITION: Ford ed., v, 286.
PLACE: [none given]
DATE: 1791

“The construction applied... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers.” —Thomas Jefferson

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition. Thomas Jefferson (Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 15 February 1791)

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invent against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson

[loveliberty2]

"Nothing is more natural or common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of the 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.”

IMHO, there are no better explanations and clarifications on this question from the men who framed our documents of liberty than this from Madison and those provided by MosesKnows in Post #11 from Thomas Jefferson.

Blackbart.223 also has made an apt observation: "You don't throw off one yoke to assume another."

The Founders' 'world view' included an honest assessment of human nature, especially the human tendency to abuse power, delegated or assumed. They recognized their own imperfection, as well as that of those they would elect to represent them under the new Constitution's provisions. For that reason, they explicitly wrote a "people's" Constitution limiting, dividing, separating, checking and balancing those powers. As an added protection, they made "the People's" Constitution amendable only by the Constitution's own provision in Article V--requiring "the People's" participation in any changes to be made. No Constitutional Amendment, authorized under Article V, has been passed to expand the definition of "general welfare."

Was the Founders' understanding of human nature correct? Over time, have those entrusted with power abused that power?

Given Madison's and Jefferson's explanation, was any subsequent abuse of power because of a lack of clear explanation by the brave revolutionaries whose passion was liberty?

Clearly, those who wished to expand the powers of government for their own political purposes have been disingenious in their pretense that the Founders intended for one set of imperfect people in the society to possess the power to make and pass laws to "take" the earnings of the likewise imperfect people they represent under the guise of "helping" another set of people--all a simple vote-buying scam designed to accumulate even more power to themselves!

"The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of property] and a community of goods [common ownership] are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional. - Samuel Adams

"Our Ageless Constitution", a 1987 Volume which was recently reprinted and is available here contains an essay on Pages 110-116, entitled "Limited Spending and Taxing Powers and 'Small, Frugal Government' (Jefferson). In that comprehensive essay, constitutional scholars trace the 200-year departure from the principle intended to secure liberty and prevent the kinds of runaway taxing and spending by which the current Administration, and those preceding it, have been and are enslaving future generations.

[Navy Patriot]

Excellent analysis, and there are other ways to substantiate that your understanding is the correct and intended understanding by the Framers.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"provide for the common defence" does not mean provide for individual defence, and indeed courts have repeatedly decided that government employees (including military and law enforcement) are not required to defend individual citizens, and cannot be held responsible for refusing to do so.

Likewise, "promote the general Welfare", does not mean promote individual Welfare, but here the lefties, statists, and Marxists rant that the opposite is true and the US must guarantee the welfare of every citizen or even better every human, animal, plant, and rock in the universe.

In the socialist universe, the same word will have opposite meanings even if it appears twice in the same sentence, and those meanings will be what the lefty says they mean.

At the point of a gun.

[EDINVA]

Well done. Alas, we’re living in a world of lol and wtf. So the serious meanings of words as the Framers meant them is lost. FWIW ;)

[pallis]

Thanks for inviting me to this thread. As someone with a “graduate Political Science degree” I should yield to your wisdom and the wisdom of those who understand our Founders were seeking to limit infringements on liberty, not destroy liberty with unlimited power to government.

[Jacquerie]

Oops. No insult intended.

[pallis]

“Oops. No insult intended.”

None taken.

[SuperLuminal]

"....to make sure that a reasonably literate people could not ignore, confuse or abuse its meaning. Congressional powers are strictly limited to those enumerated. "

Even the Founders couldn't imagine the moronic intellectual level now fully attained by 99% of the citizenry.

All thanks to the Fabian-run government schools and the moronic NEA slaves who do the actual indoctrination of the government's children,

[Jacquerie]

On closely reading Article I Section 8 a few days ago, I felt for a moment as if I had made an important discovery.

The fact is that my interpretation was the accepted version from 1787 until the mid 1930s. What happened then? Leftism happened. As EPDVINA and Navy Patriot related here, the Left has an amazing ability to redefine and contort words and concepts into unrecognizable forms. And yes, a dumbed down, radical labor union dominated educational system is probably as great a threat to our future as radical islam.

[OneWingedShark]

It sums it up nicely, the meaning of the phrase really IS clear. In the way that ancient governments were responsible to prevent widespread-starvation (ref: Joseph/Egypt, Japan’s taxes of rice) is what is meant by common defense and general welfare. {Just note how easy it is to militarily conquer a population that is, literally, starving to death.}