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"Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 . . . Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18."

There is a restriction in that Clause as well that we can't overlook: "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper..."

Hamilton said nothing about I.8.18 allowing Congress to act outside its constitutional limitations.

As I understand Hamilton, the Bank was to be used for carrying out powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution. Hamilton did not say that an implied power could be used for purposes outside of the enumerated power itself.

Hamilton:

It is conceded that implied powers are to be considered as delegated equally with express ones. Then it follows, that as a power of erecting a corporation may as well be implied as any other thing, it may as well be employed as an instrument or mean of carrying into execution any of the specified powers, as any other instrument or mean whatever. The only question must be in this, as in every other case, whether the mean to be employed or in this instance, the corporation to be erected, has a natural relation to any of the acknowledged objects or lawful ends of the government. Thus a corporation may not be erected by Congress for superintending the police of the city of Philadelphia, because they are not authorized to regulate the police of that city. But one may be erected in relation to the collection of taxes, or to the trade with foreign countries, or to the trade between the States, or with the Indian tribes; because it is the province of the federal government to regulate those objects, and because it is incident to a general sovereign or legislative power to regulate a thing, to employ all the means which relate to its regulation to the best and greatest advantage.

Would you agree that Hamilton intended for an implied power to be used only as a means to carry out a power enumerated in Article I?

The Clause says "general Welfare of the United States". Do you know of any source which interprets the "United States" as meaning "the people of the United States"?

If not, then I see no basis for saying Hamilton or any of the other Founders would support a universal federal retirement plan paid for by working citizens.