Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-806_2dp3.pdf
Page Number: 49

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

17 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

instance, expenditures to construct a road would be justi-
fied  only  if  the  road  could  be  constructed  under  the  Post
Roads Clause or some other enumerated power.  See Renz 
108–119;  see  also  J.  Eastman,  Restoring  the  “General”  to
the General Welfare Clause, 4 Chap. L. Rev. 63, 72 (2001). 
As  this  side  of  the  debate  also  took  a  narrow  view  of  the 
enumerated  powers,  it  generally  argued  that  the  Federal 
Government could not fund internal improvements without
a constitutional amendment.  See Sky 140–141.  The other 
camp,  associated  with  the  nationalist  views  of  Hamilton 
and Joseph Story, understood the General Welfare Clause
to “include a very broad spending authority,” which could 
be applied to purposes not specifically enumerated by the 
Constitution.  Natelson 12; see also Renz 124–126. 

Even this camp, however, understood that “the General
Welfare  Clause  does  not  include  a  power  to  regulate.”
Natelson 12; see also Sky 96.  Hamilton, for example, made 
clear that the spending power did not “imply a power to do
whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the
general welfare.”  Report on the Subject of Manufactures 37
(1791).  As he further elaborated, “[a] power to appropriate 
money [does] not carry a power to do any other thing, not
authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair
implication.”  Ibid.  Instead, any regulatory authority had 
to  be  tethered  to  some  independent  regulatory  power.
Thus,  under  this  view,  Congress  could  spend  money  on
roads and canals unconnected with the enumerated powers, 
but it would have to depend on the States for any regulatory 
legislation  needed  to  complete  and  preserve  the  improve-
ments. 

This  understanding  that  the  spending  power  itself  ex-
tended only to the “application of money,” ibid. (emphasis
in original), led Hamilton to favor a constitutional amend-
ment “empowering Congress to open canals.”  Letter from 
A. Hamilton to J. Dayton (1799), in 10 Works of Alexander
Hamilton 334 (H. Lodge ed. 1904).  After all, opening canals