General Welfare

02/24/10 by AX.

Article 1 § 8 of the Constitution allows the Congress the power to “To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; ” among many other things. This is of course is the opening to the Powers of Congress section.  Note that this section of the Constitution was of great importance and focus of the construction process. Because this section empowers the new Federal Government with enormous power of the Union, special care was taken to ensure the proper phraseology. As with the rest of the document, succinctness was extremely important so as to not give rise to misinterpretation due to an overabundance of legalese.

Reading the passage in a natural way, there are three major parts; what, why, and a caveat. The what is funding, the why is what the money is spent on, and the caveat is a limitation on how the money is collected.

Assuming that the Congress hasn’t had too many problems taxing (although an amendment was later added to increase their ability to collect more), we will skip that portion of the passage. How that money is spent has been a source of great debate. The focus of this post will be limited to the General Welfare Clause.

The welfare clause juxtaposition to the defense clause is more than coincidental. Welfare is defined by Merriam-Webster as 1 : the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity. So, “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” begins to gain meaning. Common defense is easy to define. Remembering that the Constitution was solely written to govern the Federal Government and that state is defined in all contexts other than our country as a sovereign nation, The Federal Government was established to band the several states for their protection and in doing so, maintain the strength of the New World against outside invaders. That strength necessarily means more than just militarily. Maintaining cohesion amongst the states is essential to true strength among multiple sovereigns.

The general welfare of the United States inextricably linked to common defense and once again is carefully phrased. Far from the Constitution proposing that the Federal Government should be giving money to individual citizens as “welfare checks”, this clause was specifically intended to prohibit such activity. General does not naturally mean specific or individual. The welfare (health and prosperity) is for the United States, not the individual states or citizens thereof. Remember, at the time the Constitution was written, the Federal Government was prohibited from collecting taxes directly from individuals by Article 1 § 9. The common theme throughout the document was keeping the Federal Government removed from the individual lives of the citizens as much as possible.

The introductory clauses of A1§8 were placed in front of the specific powers of Congress to explain the necessity of the following enumerated powers. That the preamble to the Constitution reflects this line of reasoning. Beyond that, Madison himself felt compelled to further iterate this point in Federalist Paper 41. (On a side note, take a look at the Second Amendment. The introductory statement gives reason to the actual restriction on infringement of arms. To illustrate the point, consider this statement; A sturdy house being necessary to protect from wolves, the right of pigs to build brick houses shall not be infringed. Would a reasonable person believe that if pigs live away from wolves they can be prohibited from building brick houses?)

After the introduction portion of §8, the rest of the section is devoted to how the Congress may procure the money to finance its various endeavors pursuant to the first part of the introduction and how to provide for the common defense and general welfare. The powers enumerated in the body effect the means for ensuring the successful defense with armies and a standing Navy as well as accommodating for the general welfare through such powers as establishing post offices and post roads, regulating the monetary system, the power to create a copyright regulatory system and others powers enumerated therein. Additionally, §9 follows up with a set of prohibitions relating directly to taxation (of various forms) and activities legislatures are wont to do that are detrimental to the general welfare (such as bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and suspension of habeas corpus).

One reason the Federal Government has been diligently trying to redefine the term general welfare (not to mention the interstate commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause) for so long is the Tenth Amendment. Because the Tenth Amendment strictly forbids the Federal Government from exercising powers not specifically enumerated in Article 1, the only way to increase power is to invent enumerated powers. With a complicit Supreme Court, those pretended powers become real.

AX

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