I don't believe that the Constitution is a living breathing document like al gore and you, wry.
Our Founding Fathers knew the danger of that going forward with the natural cycle of a government growing, and with that the evils that would come from it.
James Madison stated that the “general welfare” clause was not intended to give Congress an open hand “to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.”
If by the “general welfare,” the Founding Fathers had meant any and all social, economic, or educational programs Congress wanted to create, there would have been no reason to list specific powers of Congress such as establishing courts and maintaining the armed forces. Those powers would simply have been included in one all-encompassing phrase, to “promote the general welfare.”
Quoting the Tenth Amendment, Jefferson wrote: “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.”
Writing about the “general welfare” clause in 1791, Thomas Jefferson saw 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.” Unlike public officials during Jefferson’s time, our modern-day legislators have a very loose interpretation of the Constitution. The result is that government has mushroomed into a monolithic bureaucracy.
general welfare
James Madison and Alexander Hamilton both pointed out in the Federalists Papers (Federalist #41: (
http://members.ll.net/chiliast/pdocs/fed41.htm) that politicians who used "misconstruction"(1) in applying definition to the clause "general welfare" were "laboring under distress to validate their claim to power without restriction". The founding fathers themselves lend definition to their intent of the "general welfare" term in their writings that modern day politicians fail to read or understand. Again, our founding fathers directed in their writings there is no such thing as a general welfare clause in the Constitution. There are the words general welfare as part of an opening sentence only that do not inject any power to the Central Federal government. Ergo, general welfare is simply a term used to open the Constitution...not a clause.
General Welfare?
“Madison warned Congress that the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution was never intended to become a Pandora’s Box for special-interest legislation, such as taxpayer subsidies to private business” (“How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present” by Thomas DiLorenzo; pg 82).
Madison vetoed one such bill, Madison: “…decided it was time to teach the nation a lesson in constitutionalism…” the congress “…failed to take into account the fact that Congress had enumerated powers under section eight of the first article of the Constitution…” (Ibid; pg 82) (“The Presidency of James Madison” by Robert Allen Rutland, pg 205).
Madison on the Meaning of the “General Welfare,” the “Purpose” of Enumerated Powers, and the “Definition” of Constitutional Government — Sorenson 22 (2): 109 — Publius: The Journal of Federalism Inzax
I pleased with you response, Meister, but I'm not convinced. While Madison is one of the founding fathers and credited as the Father of the Constitution his opinion on the "General Welfare" was not supported by all of the founders. Washington and Hamilton, for example, both justified the National Bank, a standing Army and Navy as necessary and legal under the provision of the General Welfare.
In reading your last post and attachments I'm struck by the author's conclusions, particularly his opinion that Social Security and Medicare (and all of the New Deal) are illegal actions in violation of the Constitution. I know, I maybe cynical, but such conclusions suggest your post is more a contemporary political agenda and list of talking points then an historical account of our history.
Madison did a 180 after the ratification of the Constitution, pretty much abandoning the Enumerated Powers of the Constitution. His brand of Federalism is dissimilar to Madison's, and even Jefferson's. Unfortunately for Us, Hamilton, running Washington's Administration prevailed. Considering the handling of "The Whiskey Insurrection", considering Hamilton's position on the National Bank, regarding method, considering his part in the Alien and Sedition Act's, I personally view him as Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. The damage he did to the republic, yet to be addressed or repaired.
Hamilton: The Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, 1791
The Whiskey Rebellion, less commonly known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a resistance movement in the western frontier of the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. The conflict was rooted in the dissatisfaction in western counties with various policies of the eastern-based national government. The name of the uprising comes from the Whiskey Act of 1791, an excise tax on whiskey that was a central grievance of the westerners. The tax was a part of treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton's program to centralize and fund the national debt.
The tax proved to be unpopular among small farmers in the western states, where government officials were prevented through violence and intimidation from collecting the tax. Resistance came to a climax in July 1794, when a U.S. marshal arrived in western Pennsylvania to serve writs to distillers who had not paid the excise. The alarm was raised, and more than 500 armed Pennsylvanians attacked the fortified home of tax inspector General John Neville. The Washington administration responded by sending peace commissioners to western Pennsylvania to negotiate with the rebels, while at the same time raising a force of militia to suppress the violence. The insurrection collapsed before the arrival of the army; about 20 people were arrested, but all were later acquitted or pardoned.
The Whiskey Rebellion demonstrated that the new national government had the willingness and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws. The whiskey excise remained difficult to collect, however. The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already underway. The whiskey tax was repealed after Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, which opposed Hamilton's Federalist Party, came to power in 1800.
Origins
The federal government, at the behest of the 1st Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, assumed the states' debt from the American Revolutionary War. In 1791 Hamilton convinced Congress to approve the Whiskey Act, which placed an excise tax on alcohol. This was to be the first "internal" tax levied by the national government. Although Hamilton's principal reason for the tax was raising money to service the national debt, he also justified the tax "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue."[1] Most importantly, however, Hamilton "wanted the tax imposed to advance and secure the power of the new federal government." [2]
There were two methods of paying the whiskey excise: paying a flat charge or paying by the gallon. The tax effectively favored large distillers, most of whom were based in the east, who produced whiskey in volume and could afford the flat fee. Western farmers who owned small stills did not usually operate them at full capacity, and so they ended up paying a higher tax per gallon. Large producers ended up paying a tax of 6 cents per gallon, while small producers were taxed at 9 cents per gallon.[3]
But Western settlers were short of cash to begin with and, being far from their markets and lacking good roads, lacked any practical means to get their grain to market other than by fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable distilled spirits. Additionally, whiskey was often used among western farmers as a medium of exchange or as a barter good.[4]
In addition to the whiskey tax, westerners had a number of other grievances with the national government. Chief among these was the perception that the government was not adequately protecting the western frontier: the Northwest Indian War was going badly for the United States, with major losses in 1791. Furthermore, westerners were prohibited by Spain (which then owned Louisiana) from using the Mississippi River for commercial navigation. Until that issue was addressed, westerners felt that government was ignoring their economic welfare. Adding the whiskey excise to these existing grievances only increased tensions.[5]
Resistance
The tax on whiskey was bitterly and fiercely opposed on the frontier from the day it was passed. Western farmers considered it to be both unfair and discriminatory, since they had traditionally converted their excess grain into liquor. Since the nature of the tax directly affected those who produced the whiskey but only indirectly affected those who bought it (and much whiskey was not actually sold, but bartered or consumed by its manufacturers), its burden fell directly on many farmers. Many protest meetings were held, and an anti-tax movement arose, reminiscent of the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 before the American Revolution.[citation needed]
From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also made violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina.[6]
Tax collectors were not the only people targeted in Pennsylvania: those who cooperated with federal tax officials also faced harassment. Anonymous notes and newspaper articles signed by "Tom the Tinker" threatened those who complied with the whiskey tax. Those who failed to heed the warnings might have their barns burned or have their stills destroyed.[7]
[edit] Insurrection
By the summer of 1794, tensions reached a fevered pitch all along the western frontier. Finally, the civil protests became an armed rebellion. The first shots were fired at the Oliver Miller Homestead in present day South Park Township, Pennsylvania, about ten miles south of Pittsburgh. As word of the rebellion spread across the frontier, a series of loosely organized resistance measures were taken, including robbing the mail, stopping judicial proceedings, and threatening an assault on Pittsburgh. One group, disguised as women, assaulted a tax collector, cropped his hair, coated him with tar and feathers, and stole his horse.[citation needed]
George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, remembering Shays' Rebellion eight years before, decided to make Pennsylvania a testing ground for federal authority. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court. On August 7, 1794, Washington invoked the Militia Law of 1792 to federalize the militias of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey. The militia force of 12,950 men was a large army by American standards of the time: the army that had been with Washington during the Revolutionary War had often been smaller.[citation needed]
Washington traveled from Philadelphia, then the U.S. capital, to review the progress of the military expedition. He met with western representatives in Bedford, Pennsylvania, on October 9 before going to Fort Cumberland in Maryland to review the southern wing of the army.[8] Convinced that the federalized militia would meet little resistance, he placed the army under the command of the governor of Virginia, Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, a hero of the American Revolutionary War. Washington returned to Philadelphia, but Hamilton remained with the army as civilian adviser.[9]
The army marched into western Pennsylvania in October 1794. Some of the most prominent leaders of the insurrection, like David Bradford, fled westward to safety. After an investigation, government officials arrested about twenty people and brought them back to Philadelphia for trial.[10] All but two were eventually released or acquitted. The two men convicted of treason, Philip Vigol (or Wigle) and John Mitchell, were sentenced to death by hanging. Vigol had beaten up a tax collector and burned his house; Mitchell was a simpleton who had been convinced by David Bradford to rob the U.S. mail. Both were pardoned by President Washington.[11]
[edit] Consequences
This marked the first time under the new United States Constitution that the federal government used military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens. It was also the only time that a sitting President personally commanded the military in the field.[12]
The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone-filtered water and began making whiskey from corn, which developed into Bourbon.[13] The rebellion and its suppression helped turn people away from the Federalist Party and toward the Democratic-Republican Party. This is shown in the 1794 Philadelphia congressional election, in which upstart Democratic Republican John Swanwick won a stunning victory over incumbent Federalist Thomas Fitzsimons, carrying 7 of 12 districts and 57% of the vote. The farmers were severely angered.[citation needed]
The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success.[14]
Whiskey Rebellion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turning Point USA college president resigns after racist text chat leaks
More genocidal comments from indians that we allowed into this country.
Shock NBC poll reveals American voters' true feelings about ICE and Democrats
