We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble to the Constitution has been taken to mean many things. One of them, which President Obama implied today in his inauguration address, was the ability for the federal government to spend limitlessly in the name of the general welfare.

The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

This is the same philosophy as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and many others on the American left, and, occasionally, on the American right. John McCain, for example, seemed to believe the question was not whether or not the government could spend in excess, but where the boundry for excessive spending lay.

But this is NOT how the Constitution was intended.

The 10th Amendment

First of all, the 10th Amendment clearly states that the guidelines laid out in the Constitution was ONLY what the government could enact. It argues that all powers not given to Congress should be given to the states. Thomas Jefferson summed up this argument in 1791:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

Yes, but…

However, there IS one small loophole. The preamble notes that:

…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(emphasis mine)

This could be seen to include government aid such as welfare and perhaps, in a stretch, health care.

But there’s something else that few pick up on.

Unlimited spending and general welfare

The government was never intended to have unlimited spending in the name of the general welfare. The Father of the Constitution, Mr. James Madison, aruged in a letter to Edmund Pendleton:

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions

Later, when discussing a foreign aid bill in the House of Representatives, Madison argued:

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitutents.

This is the writer of the Constitution speaking. The Father of the Constitution believed that unlimited spending was completely unconstitutional. So what did he do about it? Madison wrote a list of what Congress could do. These are listed in Article 1, Section 8:

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Nowhere in there is there any mention of welfare or health care or any form of any kind of aid. But is this the only list of things the government can do? Yes, according to Madison:

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

Conclusion

I sincerely believe that President Obama is doing what he thinks is best for the country. But it’s not. This isn’t about whether or not people deserve aid or health care, whether or not they need it, or whether or not it works if and when they get it. We need to follow the Constitution as it was intended, or scrap it altogether. Our Constitution has served us well for over two centuries. When asked to pick between a second New Deal and the Constitution, I’ll opt for the Constitution. As Sam Adams, the great American patriot, once said:

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

Related posts:

• General Welfare Insanity or How We Are Spending Ourselves into Oblivion
• Newt Gingrich Is Wrong: There Should Be No Federal Role in Education
• See, This is the Problem With Congressional Republicans
• An Open Letter to Kit Bond
• Uncommon Sense