The Implied Powers of the United States

The conventional understanding of McCulloch v. Maryland is that an act of Congress must be within the scope of specified enumerated powers or an appropriate means to carry those specified powers into effect. This now classical doctrine rests on a misunderstanding of McCulloch. It is also incomplete in failing to account for important exercises of national power that cannot readily be tied to specific enumerated powers or justified as means to effectuate those powers. Several distinguished scholars, arguing that the classical means-ends approach is incorrect, assert that Congress possesses an expansive power to legislate for the national general welfare, or, as sometimes articulated, to address all national necessities or exigencies. They rely, inter alia, on the General Welfare Clauses of the Preamble and Article I, Section 8; conceptions of inherent national sovereignty; the actions of the Constitutional Convention concerning Resolution VI of the Virginia Plan; and the three provisions of the Necessary and Proper Clause. Although these scholars present valuable insights, their arguments for a national general welfare power are overbroad when evaluated according to constitutional text, structure, and history. This Article advances a theory, original to the literature, of how the enumerated powers of the national government should be construed and applied in determining the scope of national power. The Constitution vests four great aggregate powers in the government of the United States–providing for the common defense; conducting foreign relations; preventing and resolving disputes between the States and the United States, and between the States themselves; and creating and maintaining a national economic union. Virtually all of the specific enumerated powers of the three branches are contained in these four clusters of power. These aggregate powers are “ends” of the national government, and legislation that carries these powers into effect are appropriate “means” of congressional authority. The framework presented in this Article is based on construing the Constitution as a whole and not as the collection of unrelated parts; the historical origin of the enumerated powers in the long-standing distribution of powers between the imperial British government and the colonial assemblies that was carried forward into the Constitution; Hamilton’s arguments on the scope of national power in Federalist 23 and the opinion on the Bank of the United States; Marshall’s adoption of those arguments in McCulloch and Story’s in his Commentaries; and Congress’s authority to carry into execution not only specified enumerated powers but also “all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.” This framework explains the validity of national powers that are outside of the classical means-ends model. It respects federalism by giving Congress plenary authority over four discrete areas that are essential to the Union, while allowing for extensive legislative authority in the States and the people. And it has implications for the separation of powers and the extent to which Congress may expand the jurisdiction of the federal courts beyond the categories enumerated in Article III.