If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general
welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
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James Madison (1751-1836) Father of the Constitution for the USA,
4th US President
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On
the Cod Fishery Bill, granting Bounties. February 7, 1792, referring to a bill
to subsidize cod fisherman
James Madison stated that the “general welfare” clause was not intended to give Congress an open hand “to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.” If by the “general welfare,” the Founding Fathers had meant any and all social, economic, or educational programs Congress wanted to create, there would have been no reason to list specific powers of Congress such as establishing courts and maintaining the armed forces. Those powers would simply have been included in one all-encompassing phrase, to “promote the general welfare.”
ReplyDeleteJohn Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, once observed: “Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.”
It is NOT the government’s business (constitutionally) to “help” individuals in financial difficulty. Once they undertake to provide those kinds of services, they must do so with limited resources, meaning that some discriminating guidelines must be imposed. (so many who need that kind of help- so little resources to provide it.)
The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Morning all
ReplyDeleteMay I add a little here? Reading Williams post, the first observation must be to admire the concise style and the purity of Madison’s prose. That Madison and Jefferson were friends for so long seems to have been of mutual advantage. Madison certainly councils against too much centralist government. In fact Madison appears to me to have seen the dangers of Socialism long before Engels and Marx saw what they perceived as the advantages of such a system.
It does appear to me from afar, Madison was even then promoting “small” government. I use the term small as it does appear to have been carried forward, sometimes hidden under pressing problems of government, but always there as a tenet of the Republican party who, for reasons best known to themselves, are still tied to the origins of the movement in Rippon Wisconsin in 1854.
As an aside, not to show off my knowledge of your history, but to bring forth two giants of American History. Stephen Douglas and Abe Lincoln who were so important in the early days. Lincoln the first Republican President and Douglas with his Kansas Nebraska act not only brought the party to prominence but in a series of public debates, ensured the lasting reputations of both as skilled debaters and in the case of Lincoln an outstanding leader of a Nation so sorely in need of one.
What then of small government as a plank in the political platform? There certainly needs to be protection for the disadvantaged but this must be balanced against the suffocation of business which could, and has, lead to the inability of business to function effectively therefore reducing the income needed by government to look after the needy.
After a long lifetime of study, I am forced to conclude that Government of the people, for the people, by the people, is a worthwhile dream but it is not the final solution. To discover that final solution we need the Wisdom of Solomon. In the case of America, perhaps you need those who burst upon the scene from 1770 until the passing in 1826 of Jefferson and Adams, two of those in a small group who stand head and shoulders above contemporary arse warmers on the Hill.
Cheers from Aussie
“Disarm the people- that is the best and most effective
Deleteway to enslave them.”
― James Madison
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Delete― James Madison, The Constitution of the United States of America
“Great power often corrupts virtue; it invariably renders vice more malignant. . . . In proportion as the powers of government increase, both its own character and that of the people becomes worse.”
Delete—John Taylor of Caroline, 1814
James Madison, “father of the Constitution,” thought an extensive and expanding union would “dilute faction” and preserve liberty under an American mercantilism. Tying liberty to territorial expansion, Madison imposed an imperial logic on the Constitution he helped create. Taylor, spying the state-building possibilities of that program, came to oppose it. “A protector is unexceptionally a master,” he noted.
DeleteTaylor wrote, "If the means to which the government of the union may resort for executing the power confided to it, are unlimited, it may easily select such as will impair or destroy the powers confided to the state governments." Jefferson, who noted that "Col. Taylor and myself have rarely, if ever, differed in any political principle of importance," considered Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated "the most logical retraction of our governments to the original and true principles of the Constitution creating them, which has appeared since the adoption of the instrument."
Delete