Provocative thoughts

[Vexari]

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..


~ James Madison ~ (1751-1836)

Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

Source.. On the Cod Fishery Bill, granting Bounties. February 7, 1792, referring to a bill to subsidize cod fisherman
introduced in the first year of the new Congress..
http://www.constitution.org/je/je4_cong_deb_12.htm

http://www.barefootsworld.net/nortonuc12.html



Comment


At the time of the writing of the Constitution, Fabian and other forms of Socialism were all the rage in Europe. 'General Welfare" was a popular contemporary term to that time clearly used differently by the Founders (biblical, Locke, Blackstone, etc. principles applied to the individual sovereign) than by the collectivists.

For example: "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." (Thomas Jefferson)
~ Mike, Norwalk ~