Your Opinion: General welfare clause?
Published 11:53 pm Saturday, February 20, 2010
Many discussions have occurred in recent years about the General Welfare clause in the Constitution and what it means. The beginning of Article 1 section 8, “Powers of Congress” reads, “The Congress shall have Power 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.”
One point of view believes this clause opens the powers of Congress to anything that could be construed as welfare of an individual, thus giving Congress the power to make any law for what they believe is the good of anyone via the term “General Welfare.” Current events show this by simply looking at the news. Congress believes they have the right to force health care on everyone and Cap and Trade, as well. Congress knows what is good for you and passes laws against smoking, current agenda items like controlling your salt intake, laws on fat foods and fast foods, federal gun bans, establishment of EPA and OSHA, just some examples from recent years — all of which Congress was not granted power over in the constitution.
My point of view is totally different. Just the basic logic shows the previous mindset to be in error. Our founding fathers had just given life and blood to revolt against a tyrant, who had too much power. Why would they ever replace one tyrant with another tyrant? Now with some deeper understanding of our founding fathers, one would know there was a large disagreement about that very thought of replacing one king for another. This point and several others were fought out by the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Much understanding can come from reading about these two groups and their thoughts, but what is important is who the winners of these discussions were and what their principles were which were adopted.
The winners of the disagreements were the Federalists. The Anti-Federalists did not want an executive branch, because they did not trust a central government, since it would eventually become the tyrant they feared. The final fix the Federalists used was the three branches of government, which can hold each other in check and had their own different specific powers. These are the three branches we now have: Executive with the civilian power over the military, cabinets, pardons and appointments; Congress with the power to make laws within the guideline of the Constitution; and the judiciary, which has the power to set up the Supreme Court and any inferior courts designated by Congress, trial by jury, original jurisdiction and treason. There is much more to this story.
The differences of opinion Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had with Alexander Hamilton, which you may want to dig into, had an end result that was Alexander Hamilton’s push for a larger central government. An early equivalent to the Federal Reserve was stopped.
Federalist Paper 41, written by James Madison, describes and addresses the “General Welfare” clause and the specific point that it is not an open door to any power Congress wants to write laws on. In short, James Madison said: “If there were no definition of power, such as there is in the Constitution, Article 1 section 8, one could possibly believe then the general welfare clause was an open check for interpretation, but because the powers are defined, one cannot then assume different intent, because the intent is defined with the specific powers of the Congress.” Federalist papers are full of in- depth thought from our founders and are vital to an understanding to the reasoning behind much of our Constitution. The authors of the Federalist papers were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Oh yeah, James Madison, the author of Federalist Paper 41, is also considered the Father of the Constitution, so his word should carry a fair amount of weight on the meaning of Article 1 Section 8.
Speaking against the national bank (early Fed) and the implied power “general welfare” clause on Feb. 15, 1791, Thomas Jefferson discussed the danger of misinterpreting the Constitution. The danger in the hands of Senators and Congressmen was “that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”
So what do we do now? Continue to educate yourself. Challenge your elected leaders currently in office. Ensure the next set of elected leaders understand their obligations to the Constitution and “We the People.” Discuss things with friends and neighbors. Lastly, fulfill your duty and responsibility and make an informed vote during elections!
Jeff Korson
Alapaha