Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-806_2dp3.pdf
Page Number: 55

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

23 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Justice Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution
also recognized that the spending power did not carry with
it any auxiliary power to bind individuals or States.  Citing
Monroe’s Views liberally, Story agreed that Congress could 
not  enact  a  system  of  internal  improvements  under  the
General Welfare Clause.  Although he located the spending 
power in that Clause, Story understood that the power was 
confined “to mere appropriations of money,” and that, as a
result, the Federal Government could not regulate internal
improvements  except  pursuant  to  its  legislative  “enumer-
ated powers.”  3 Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
United States, §1269, p. 150 (1833); see also Sky 224 (“[A]s
read by Story, the General Welfare Clause did not consti-
tute  a  regulatory  power,  independent  of  the  spending
power, authorizing Congress to enact whatever measures it 
wished  . . .  under  an  unlimited  power  to  legislate  for  the
general welfare of the United States”).

Although disagreement on whether Congress could spend
for  purposes  beyond  the  enumerated  powers  persisted
through the Antebellum and Reconstruction  eras, the un-
derstanding that the spending power did not imply regula-
tory power persisted.  See generally Sky 232–240, 270–291. 
Because  Congress  was  acting  solely  under  its  power  to 
spend, it relied on the States’ acceptance of terms and upon
the States’ legislative powers to carry out federal spending 
programs. 

D 

Given  this  consensus,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  first 
federal grant-in-aid spending programs were contractual in 
nature.  The Morrill Act of 1862, perhaps the first such pro-
gram, extended an offer to the States to accept donations of 
federal lands on the condition that the State use the land to 
establish a college.  12 Stat. 504–505.  States had two years 
to  accept  the  federal  terms  in  the  form  of  an  Act  by  the