Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 713

529US3

Unit: $U54

[10-04-01 09:35:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

638

UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Souter, J., dissenting

Thus the elusive heart of the majority’s analysis in these
cases is its statement that Congress’s ﬁndings of fact are
“weakened” by the presence of a disfavored “method of
reasoning.” Ante, at 615. This seems to suggest that the
“substantial effects” analysis is not a factual enquiry, for
Congress in the ﬁrst instance with subsequent judicial re-
view looking only to the rationality of the congressional con-
clusion, but one of a rather different sort, dependent upon a
uniquely judicial competence.

This new characterization of substantial effects has no
support in our cases (the self-fulﬁlling prophecies of Lopez
aside), least of all those the majority cites. Perhaps this
explains why the majority is not content to rest on its
cited precedent but claims a textual justiﬁcation for moving
toward its new system of congressional deference subject to
selective discounts. Thus it purports to rely on the sensible
and traditional understanding that the listing in the Con-
stitution of some powers implies the exclusion of others
unmentioned. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195 (1824);
ante, at 610; The Federalist No. 45, p. 313 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)
(J. Madison).11 The majority stresses that Art. I, § 8, enu-

11 The claim that powers not granted were withheld was the chief Fed-
eralist argument against the necessity of a bill of rights. Bills of rights,
Hamilton claimed, “have no application to constitutions professedly
founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate
representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender
nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular
reservations.” The Federalist No. 84, at 578.
James Wilson went fur-
ther in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, asserting that an enu-
meration of rights was positively dangerous because it suggested, con-
versely, that every right not reserved was surrendered. See 2 J. Elliot,
Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal
Constitution 436–437 (2d ed. 1863) (hereinafter Elliot’s Debates). The
Federalists did not, of course, prevail on this point; most States voted
for the Constitution only after proposing amendments and the First Con-
gress speedily adopted a Bill of Rights. See Garcia v. San Antonio
Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 569 (1985) (Powell, J.,
dissenting). While that document protected a range of speciﬁc individual