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Tag Archives | General Welfare

“General Welfare” Does Not Include National Healthcare

By on May 7, 2010 in Constitution, Delegated Powers 1

Some good insight from Dr. Harold Pease of CA-TAC:

here are many less well-known facts to keep in mind as you review Section 8. Convention delegates curiously placed every power in one sentence with 18 paragraphs. This strange construction was to make it even more difficult for future power grabbers to isolate and enhance a power. Everything had to be considered in the context of the one sentence.

The Founders gave the federal government only four areas of power: taxes, paying the debts, providing for the general welfare (that’s not the same as providing the general welfare), and providing for the common defense. That is it. All four powers are identified before the first semi colon. Everything that follows are simply qualifiers of these four.

The Founders did not dare to leave the phrase “general welfare” for future power grabbers, as there is no telling what they could do with this vague concept if left undefined. They understood that it is the nature of all governments to grow. As a result, clauses 2-9 list 14 powers that comprise “general welfare.” Five deal with borrowing money, regulating its value, and dealing with counterfeiting. The other nine powers include naturalization, bankruptcies, establishing post offices, protecting inventors and authors, establishing “tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court” and “regulating commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.”

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Ignorant Politicians

By on October 30, 2009 in Health Care, Politicians 5

Seems redundant, doesn’t it? But as far as the Constitution goes, that’s just what we have in D.C. – on both sides of the political aisle. At least some of the politicos are having to pay some lip service to Constitutionality these days, as seen in this recent article in the Washington Times.

Here’s what Jason Greene, our friend in Maine, had to say about it:

It’s good to see that the legitimate Constitutional issues that many have with this legislation are actually getting some exposure in the press…even if it is only limited.

Oh and this was my favorite line… House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland was asked at a news conference recently whether Congress had “the power to mandate that somebody buy health insurance.” He replied: “Promoting the general welfare in the Constitution obviously gives broad authority to Congress to effect that end. Clearly, this is within our constitutional responsibility.”

It is truly appalling that our own elected representatives, who swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, can be so ignorant of its contents and meaning.

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18th Century Definitions: General Welfare

By on October 8, 2009 in Originalism 7

I was looking through a copy of Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language“ (published in 1755), and came across a few interesting definitions:

General:

1. Comprehending many species or individuals; not special.
3. Not restrained by narrow or distinctive limitations
5. Public; comprising the whole

Welfare:

1. Happiness; success; prosperity

Clearly, these definitions, Constitutionally-speaking, are far different than what the politicians and pundits tell us. The “general Welfare” clause, as stated in the Tenth Amendment Center’s 10-4 Pledge for the Constitution, was actually meant as a limit on power – not an excuse to expand it:

The phrase, “general Welfare,” in Article I, Section 8 does not authorize Congress to enact any laws it claims are in the “general Welfare” of the United States. The phrase sets forth the requirement that all laws passed by Congress in Pursuance of the enumerated powers of the Constitution shall also be in the general Welfare of the United States. This was affirmed by James Madison when he wrote: “With respect to the words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

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