SpidermanTuba
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
This is for all the folks who babble on about James Madison whenever the general welfare clause turns up in conversation.
If you want to discuss actual, practical, real world law, and not what you wish was the law in your fanciful fantasy land, I'd suggest you familiarized yourself with a Supreme Court case called U.S. v Butler (1936). In the majority opinion, Republican appointed Justice Roberts rejects Madison's view on the general welfare clause and adopts Hamilton's view.
United States v. Butler
That is the actual, binding, practical law that is being applied and that is the reality of it. Sorry if you don't like it, but Madison's views on the GW clause are not legally relevant
If you want to discuss actual, practical, real world law, and not what you wish was the law in your fanciful fantasy land, I'd suggest you familiarized yourself with a Supreme Court case called U.S. v Butler (1936). In the majority opinion, Republican appointed Justice Roberts rejects Madison's view on the general welfare clause and adopts Hamilton's view.
Since the foundation of the Nation, sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view, the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are, or may be, necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated legislative powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, [p66] limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This court has noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction. Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. [n12] We shall not review the writings of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Mr. Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of § 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.
United States v. Butler
That is the actual, binding, practical law that is being applied and that is the reality of it. Sorry if you don't like it, but Madison's views on the GW clause are not legally relevant