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Wyatt’s World
By Wyatt Emmerich ‘General welfare’ doesn’t mean unlimited power I wrote recently about our nation’s long-running debate over where governmental power resides - at the state or national level. Our
federal Constitution specifically “enumerates” what powers belong to
the federal government - health care is not one of them. However,
the Constitution also contains some very broad phrases allowing the
federal government to “provide for the general welfare” and “regulate
interstate commerce.” Over the years, the U.S.
Supreme Court has used these broad phrases to expand federal control,
ignoring the enumerated powers section of the Constitution. To
those who believe in interpreting the Constitution literally, this is
nothing short of treason from the very men sworn to defend the
Constitution. The debate rages on today. Seventeen states are
contesting the power of the federal government to implement Obamacare. Northsider
Dr. Richard Boronow, having read my column, reminded me of what James
Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 41, a letter to the people of New
York published in the Independent Journal in 1788. For those who don’t recall, James Madison is the prime author of our Constitution. Madison wrote: “It
has been urged and echoed, that the 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,” amounts to an
unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be
necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof
could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for
objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had
no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been
found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the
authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it
would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of
describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to
destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to
regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be
very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general
welfare.” But what color can the objection have,
when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms
immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a
semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so
expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall
one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in
the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be
retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be
denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the
enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others
were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is
more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to
explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an
enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the
general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and
mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of
charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of
the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its
origin been with the latter. So the primary
author of our Constitution not only objected to a broad interpretation
of the “general welfare” phrase, but Madison considered using this
phrase to justify unlimited federal power as “absurd.” Ironically,
over 200 years later, mainstream media is blasting Haley Barbour and 16
other governors as absurd for trying to fight the relentless expansion
of federal power into medical care. If the
“general welfare” clause allows the federal government unlimited power,
then why did Prohibition require a constitutional amendment? Because
back then, we actually followed the Constitution. The
attempt to thwart the Constitution and corrupt our Supreme Court judges
came from Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. The country was mired in
depression and Roosevelt believed only a great expansion in federal
power could save the country. Roosevelt had one
big problem. The members of the U.S. Supreme Court, following centuries
of precedent, ruled that Roosevelt did not have the authority to
implement the New Deal under our Constitution, which limits federal
power. This is where Roosevelt turned into a
bully. He so believed in his liberal policies that he ignored the
Constitution and attempted to “pack” the court. Since
the Constitution doesn‚t specify how many judges can serve on the
Supreme Court, Roosevelt wrote the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of
1937 which gave him the power to appoint six new Supreme Court judges.
It was an unprecedented power grab by the president of the United
States. The judges caved and allowed the New Deal, relying on such
vague terms as “providing for the general welfare” and “regulating
commerce.” This undid the essence of our Founding
Fathers, which was to create a united states with limited federal
power, leaving most governance to the individual states. There
is a legal way to amend the Constitution. By a two-thirds vote,
Congress can propose amendments which then must be ratified by
three-fourths of the state legislatures.
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