[gorush]

"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. " -- Thomas Jefferson letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson: With respect to the two 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. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated." -- Thomas Jefferson

[brityank]

... the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted. -- James Madison

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated." -- Thomas Jefferson

Thanks; I believe we are on the same page.

My puzzlement came from the note saying "they were wasting ink" on stipulating the enumerated powers as delineated in A1S8. As both Madison and Jefferson wrote, neither envisioned that either the 'general welfare' or 'commerce clause' would step beyond the bounds that A1S8 stipulated.

This would appear to make Article 1 Section 7 irrelevant by association.

Not really; how valid laws and regulations, in comportment with those restrictions are instituted by the Federal government, require a method of investigation and vetting for effect. A1S7 is the best way they could come up with to ensure that all parts of the Federal government - Legislature, Administration, and Courts - were given the opportunity to follow all of the rules of the Constitution.

While we have amended, as necessary, through constitutional and lawful means certain portions of the basic Constitution, none of those Amendments changed the basic understanding of either of those two clauses, IMHO.