Really?! Then I assume you find Jeffersons thoughts expressed in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association to have no constitutional effect, and that both the 1879 Reynolds v. United States Supreme Court decision and the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, as well as any following decisions, to be in error, at least insofar as these decisions hinge on the said Jefferson letter (there being perhaps other reasons why the decisions might be in error).
Jefferson had a great deal to do with it. He was in a lifelong pursuit of correspondence and other exchanges with any number of parties interested in issues of constitutionality (Adams, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, Mason, various judges, and just ordinary interested citizens). Throughout his life, Jeffersons constitutional opinions were solicited and carefully attended to.
As for implied powers, I suggest you look at Brutus's great essay on the subject:
Im familiar with Brutus. Thank you. But, I asked for your understanding and your opinion.
[Madison] began as Hamilton's ally, then became his adversary.
In the beginning Hamilton demonstrated an understanding of the enumerated powers of the Constitution in his arguments against the need for a Bill of Rights. But his understanding seems to have been a mere rhetorical device which Hamilton sought to use in an effort to discourage the adoption of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. When his effort failed, Hamilton then sought instead to render the Constitution a blank page through construction (to borrow Jeffersons words).
Meanwhile in but a few paragraphs Madison explains both the meaning of construction, or implication, and of necessary and proper in Federalist 44.
Madison's claim of 'few and defined' national powers was a farce from the start.
Whats farcical is the peculiar notion that a document of republican fundamental law can be laid open to whimsical interpretation and not, in the space of little more than two centuries, produce a government that has gone from one with few and defined powers governing a citizenry with virtually unlimited liberty to a state of virtually unlimited powers ruling subjects having few and heavily constricted rights.
He had nothing to do with the drafting of the Constitution. Pity really. He probably would have been a solid, antifederalist influence on Madison, who instead was a complete tool for Hamilton.
Im familiar with Brutus. Thank you. But, I asked for your understanding and your opinion.
Brutus pretty well explains it. Of course, as I mentioned, you can look to the Constitution in operation and see what implied powers means. Washington and Hamilton and Marshall, all Federalists, all Constitutional Convention delegates (Washington as presiding officer) made it plain in the controversy surrounding the first bank of the US. There's no need for my opinion when we have the facts.
Whats farcical is the peculiar notion that a document of republican fundamental law can be laid open to whimsical interpretation
No, it's entirely predictable, as you would know if you really were familiar with the writings of Brutus:
They [the courts] will give the sense of every article of the constitution, that may from time to time come before them. And in their decisions they will not confine themselves to any fixed or established rules, but will determine, according to what appears to them, the reason and spirit of the constitution. The opinions of the supreme court, whatever they may be, will have the force of law; because there is no power provided in the constitution that can correct their errors, or control their adjudications. From this court there is no appeal. And I conceive the legislature themselves, cannot set aside a judgment of this court, because they are authorised by the constitution to decide in the last resort. The legislature must be controlled by the constitution, and not the constitution by them. They have therefore no more right to set aside any judgment pronounced upon the construction of the constitution, than they have to take from the president, the chief command of the army and navy, and commit it to some other person. The reason is plain; the judicial and executive derive their authority from the same source, that the legislature do theirs; and therefore in all cases, where the constitution does not make the one responsible to, or controllable by the other, they are altogether independent of each other.The judicial power will operate to effect, in the most certain, but yet silent and imperceptible manner, what is evidently the tendency of the constitution: I mean, an entire subversion of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the individual states. Every adjudication of the supreme court, on any question that may arise upon the nature and extent of the general government, will affect the limits of the state jurisdiction. In proportion as the former enlarge the exercise of their powers, will that of the latter be restricted.
From the 11th essay of "Brutus" taken from The New-York Journal, January 31, 1788.
Here’s Hamilton from the convention:
” I have well considered the subject, and am convinced that no amendment of the confederation can answer the purpose of a good government, so long as State sovereignties do, in any shape, exist.”
” I apprehend the greatest danger is from the encroachment of the States on the national government”
James Madison