Source: https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/judge-storys-position-on-the-so-called-general-welfare-clause/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:11:13+00:00

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This speech was delivered before the annual meeting of the Georgia Bar Association at Tybee Island on June 2, 3, and 4, 1927.
Mr. PRESIDENT and gentlemen of the Geor­gia Bar Association: I make no apology for presenting to you today as the subject of my address a technical and abstruse question, be cause it involves the foundation stone of our form of Government.
To a proper understanding of the question it is proper to examine the propositions suggested in the Constitutional Convention on the subject of the powers of Congress.
Mr. Hamilton’s plan on the powers of Congress provided that the Legislature of the United States should have “powers to pass all laws whatsoever subject to the negative hereafter mentioned,” which negative was the power of the Executive to have a negative on all laws about to be passed.
Mr. Randolph’s plan proposed Congress should have all powers which it possessed under the Con­federation “and moreover to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legisla­tion,” etc.
Mr. Patterson’s plan provided that Congress should have all powers which it possessed under the Confederation and power “to pass acts for rais­ing a revenue, by levying a duty or duties on all goods, etc., imported into any part of the United States, etc., and by postage on all letters….to be applied to such Federal purposes as they shall deem proper and expedient, to pass acts for the regulation of trade and commerce as well as with foreign nations as with each other,” etc.
“Sec, 907. Before proceeding to consider the nature and extent of the power conferred by this , and the reasons, on which it is founded, it seems necessary to settle the gram­matical construction of the clause, and to ascertain its true meaning. Do the words, ‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, im­posts, and excises,’ constitute a distinct, substantial power; and the words, ‘to pay the debts arid provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,’ constitute another distinct and substantial power? Or are the latter words connected with the former, so as to constitute a quali­fication upon them? This has been a topic of political contro­versy and has furnished abundant materials for popular declamation and alarm. If the former be the true interpreta­tion, then it is obvious, that under the color of the generality of the words to ‘provide for the common defense and general welfare,’ the government of the United States is, in reality, a government of general and unlimited powers, notwithstand­ing the subsequent enumeration of specific powers: if the latter be the true construction, then the power of taxation only is given by the clause, and it is limited to objects of a national character, ‘to pay thr debts and provide for the common defense and the general welfare.’ But see e Contra, §923.
“Sec 908. The former opinion has been maintained by some of great ingenuity, and liberality of views. The latter has been the generally received sense of the nation, and seems supported by reasoning at once solid and impregnable. The reading, therefore, which will be maintained in these com­mentaries, is that, which makes the latter words a qualifica­tion of the former; and this will be best illustrated by sup­plying the words, which are necessarily to be understood in this interpretation. They will then stand thus: ‘The Con­gress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, im­posts, and excises, in order to pay the debts, and to pro­vide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;’ that is, for the purpose of paying the public debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. In this sense, Congress has not an unlimited power of taxation: but it is limited to specific objects,—the payment of the public debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare. A tax. therefore, laid by congress for neither of these objects would be unconstitutional, as an excess of its legislative authority. In what manner this is to be ascertained, or decided, will be considered hereafter. At present the interpretation of the words only is before us; and the reasoning, by which that already suggested has been vindicated, will now be reviewed.
“Sec. 909. The constitution was, from its very origin, contemplated to be a frame of a national government, of special and enumerated powers, and not general and unlimited powers. This is apparent, as will be presently seen, from the history of the proceedings of the convention, which framed it; and it has formed the admitted basis of all legislative and judicial reasoning upon it; ever since it was put into operation, by all, who have been its open friends and advo­cates, as well as by all, who have been its enemies and opponents. If the clause, ‘to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,’ is construed to be an independent and substantive grant of power, it not only renders wholly unimportant and unneces­sary the subsequent enumeration of specific powers; but it plainly extends far beyond them, and creates a general author­ity in congress to pass all laws, which they may deem for use common defense or general welfare. Under such circum­stances, the constitution would practically create an unlimited national government. The enumerated powers would tend to embarrassment and confusion: since they would only give rise to doubts, as to the true extent of the general power, or of the enumerated powers.
“Sec. 910. One of the must common maxims of inter­pretation is (as has already been stated), that, as an exception strengthens the force of a law in cases not excepted, so enu­meration weakens it in cases not enumerated. But, how could it be applied with success to the interpretation of the constitu­tion of the United States, if the enumerated powers were neither exceptions from, nor additions to, the general power to provide for the common defence and general welfare? To give the enumeration of the specific powers any sensible place or operation in the constitution, it is indispensable to construe them, as not wholly and necessarily embraced in the general power. The common principles of interpretation would seem to instruct us, that the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded as to give meaning to every part which will bear it. Shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power ? Nothing is more natural or common than first to use a general phrase, and then to qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which no one ought to charge on the enlightened authors of the constitution. It would be to charge them either with premediated folly or premediated fraud.
The argument of Judge Story (contained in sections 909 and 910) which demolishes the theory of the Hamiltonians, shows conclusively that the words “the common defense and general welfare,” as found in this section, constitute no substantive grant of power; and he further denies that these words contain any power whatsoever. His argu­ment is irresistible in its conclusion to any un­biased mind, but it furnishes an equally powerful argument against his claim that the words “to pro­vide for the common defense and general welfare” are merely words of limitation on the taxing power, for his argument for the latter claim is based upon the relationship of those words solely to the first clause of section 8, and excludes their relationship to the other seventeen distinct clauses in that sentence. He would thus exclude these words “common de­fense and general welfare” from any participation in the construction of the whole sentence. How can that consist with his language in sections 909 and 910?
And yet, to maintain his argument, the doubtful and indefinite terms “common defense and general welfare” are allowed to stand unconnected, unchallenged and unaffected by the clear and precise expressions which follow. Or how can his argument be maintained against the declaration in section 910?
no more through rolling clouds to soar again.
Here he frankly states that every part of a sentence must be construed with other parts to secure a reasonable meaning and that the words, “common defense and general welfare” are con­nected with every part of this sentence, with every specific grant of power; while in Section 913 he claims that they are connected only with the first clause.
He does not say here that it is usual to follow it by a videlicet, as follows, or in manner following, to-wit.
Under this contract Johnston has agreed to build for Grice “a large, commodious, and con­venient house of the best material in all respects” in the first clause of the contract; but this clause has been modified by subsequent enumerations which explain what is meant by “a large, com­modious, and convenient house.” Can Johnston meet the demands of this contract by building Grice a house, with a dining room 15 by 20 feet, a parlor 20 by 20 feet, with 8 instead of 6 bedrooms, and with 2 instead of 4 bathrooms, with dining-room floor of North Carolina pine and the parlor floor of oak? Is it not perfectly dear, under the proper construction of the contract, that the unlimited dis­cretion conveyed in the words “a large, commodious, and convenient house, of the best materials in all respects,” is explained and modified by the sub­sequent words giving the number and size of rooms, character of floors, and so forth? The real meaning of this contract is that Johnston has agreed to build Grice a house with a certain number of rooms; cer­tain number of bathrooms, with the floors of the rooms specified of certain material, the size of each clearly indicated, and that when this is done the house will be regarded by Grice as “a large, com­modious, and convenient house.” In other words, the specific enumerations constitute the real con­tract, and the words in the first clause are merely words of general import. And so “the common defense and general welfare” are explained in their meaning by the enumerated clauses that follow in the same sentence.
Now, it may be admitted that these words would have a natural and appropriate meaning as a qualification or limitation on the taxing power, if this first clause was a complete sentence, but it is only one clause of a sentence of eighteen clauses, and his argument heretofore, as I have shown, is that these words have a relation to every part of this sentence and must be considered in the construction of each clause of the sentence, and hence the error of his assumption.
This coefficient clause therefore constitutes the constitutional limitation on the taxing power of Congress; but any law passed by Congress to carry out an express grant must be necessary and bona fide appropriate to the end. So Congress, desiring to carry out some regulation of commerce that requires an appropriation, may by law appropriate money for it under this coefficient clause, for the end is legitimate and the appropriation is bona fide appropriate to the end. So as to every other grant of power to Congress that may require money.
And so we find that judge Story’s interpreta­tion that these words constitute a natural and ap­propriate limitation on the power to lay taxes is useless and unnecessary, as the true interpretation is supplied by the Constitution itself in the co­efficient clause, which gives to Congress in the disposition of money raised by taxation, the right to dispose of it wherever necessary and wherever bona fide appropriate to carry out a power granted by the Constitution to the Congress. Why, then, should Judge Story supply an interpretation which the Constitution itself clearly supplies? Why pro­vide a limitation upon the taxing power when the Constitution itself has clearly provided it in this eighteenth clause, known as the coefficient clause?
But it is clear that these words do not constitute a limitation upon the taxing power of Congress as contended by Judge Story but an expansion of its taxing power, as will be shown. If these words had been omitted, the limitation upon the taxing power supplied to Congress in the coefficient clause, limits Congress in its appropriations to “the foregoing powers,” that is, the enumerated National powers; whereas, under Judge Story’s construction, that slight limitation is brushed aside; and wherever sympathy, or emotion, or the political bias of Congress may conclude that an appropria­tion will be for the general welfare, whether it be to carry out a National power, a local power, or a power exclusively in the States, Congress may do it; a power as broad as the boundless seas and as infinite as the firmament, embracing the whole field of human desires and human cupidity, with no guide but its own will; with no restraint, but its own discretions; with no Constitution but its own fiat, and no law but its own power.
The proposition of Mr. Hamilton would have given Congress unlimited power to create recep­tacles and then fill them up with appropriations from the treasury. Judge Story stoutly denies such power as intended to be given in the Constitution, but claims the power in Congress to appropriate money to any persons, associations, or corporations if in their opinion it would conduce to the general welfare of the people. Under this view the courts are without power to obstruct any such measure, as it is to be left to Congress alone to determine, and not the courts. Judge Story denies that the Hamil­tonian claim could be sound because it would make of the Government one of unlimited powers, which he says, as we have seen, was never intended by the Convention; but if Congress is without restraint in selecting objects of appropriation, and the tax power is likewise unlimited, is it not apparent that the union of these two unlimited powers in Con­gress creates a government of unlimited power? The roads may be different that lead to the same end, but it the end, a government of unlimited power, which Judge Story well says, was never in­tended be the same, his construction must be re­jected, as it leads inevitably to the same result, if not to a worse result.
But Judge Story’s construction of these words as a limitation of the taxing power of Congress is subject to a fatal objection for another reason. The general welfare of the United States is made up of the welfare of the people in the several States, in relation to some particular object. Now, while this object may permeate the whole country in the wel­fare of the people, it may be a subject which, under the Constitution, must be regulated by the States and therefore denied to the Federal Government, for it is well known that Congress can legislate only under the powers granted to it, while all else, under the Tenth Amendment, is left to the several States for their determination. So that, the general wel­fare may be, and often is, claimed in a subject which is confessedly within the power of the States alone to control. If the special general welfare sought to be obtained is included in the power to regulate commerce, or establish post offices or post roads, or any of the granted plowers, Congress clearly has the power to appropriate, for it under the coefficient clause, but not under the general welfare clause; but if the object should be education, or maternity, or vocational rehabilitation, or any other subject under the exclusive control of the Slates, it must be denied, as Congress has no power to control those subjects.
“Congress is authorized to lay and collect taxes, to pay debts, etc. This does not interfere with the power of the States to tax for the support of their own governments, nor is the exercise of that power by the States the exercise of any portion that is granted to the United States.
“In imposing taxes for State purposes they are not doing what Congress is empowered to do.
And what purposes or objects are within the exclusive power if the States? Everything except those granted to Congress in the Constitution. This simple statement of the great Chief justice, who did more to expound the Constitution than any man who ever sat upon the Supreme bench, is the com­plete and final answer to the absurd claim of the existence of a general welfare clause, under which, it is claimed, Congress can appropriate money for any cause that they may deem for the general wel­fare of the people of the United States.
Judge Story’s conclusion that these words “common defense and general welfare” are simply a limitation upon the taxing power of the Govern­ment, while denying to them any constructive power, results in this anomalous condition, that the Federal Government, under these words, can con­struct or create no instrumentality unless the power be granted in the Constitution, but may yet appro­priate the money raised by taxation to such organ­ization constructed by the States or other power; that is, that while the Congress could not create a university in every State, it would have the power, if in its opinion it was for the “general welfare” to appropriate money to run them after being estab­lished by the States.
What is the meaning of the word “United States” in that clause? Would it mean to pay the debts of the people of the United States, or pay the debts of the Government of the United Stales? The words “the people” are omitted, and, in this form, clearly it would mean the debts of the United Stales Gov­ernment. The words “United States” would, there­fore, mean the Government of the United States, under the Constitution. Now, supply the omitted words in the above paragraph, “and provide for the common defense and general welfare”; must not the words “United States” mean the same as to both the payment of debts and common defense and gen­eral welfare? They are connected by the conjunc­tive “and.” So that this careful examination of the sentence shows beyond question that the com­mon defense and general welfare contemplated was not that of the people of the United States but of the Government of the United States, and, therefore, when under this construction, an appropriation of $1oo,000,000 is asked for out of the treasury to be applied to education in the States, there is no au­thority for it even under this supposed general wel­fare clause, because it specifically declares that the debts to be paid and the welfare to be secured are not those of the people of the United States, but of the Government of the United States. We find this view powerfully confirmed in an address of Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, a scholarly student of the Constitution, delivered before the Georgetown Uni­versity Law School in February, 1886 [sic].
If Judge Story’s interpretation of this clause be ad­mitted, namely that these words are merely limita­tions on the taxing power of Congress, the real difficulty is still left unsolved, for he assumes, once it is granted that they are merely words of limitation on the taxing power, that Congress is clothed with the power of determining what is the common defense and general welfare. But this is mere assumption. If no definition or description of these words is found in the Constitution, and if the Constitution failed to give their meaning, there might be some reason to adopt his suggestion; but if there be a reasonable construction of the Constitution defining these words, why should that reasonable construction be set aside to give to Congress an unlimited control over the whole Government, which Judge Story has so eloquently decried? What is the common defense? What is the general welfare of the United States, Who is to determine this common defense and general welfare? What authority, under the Constitution, has the power to say what objects come within these two terms’ If taxation can be had legitimately to meet the demands of these two extensive terms where shall taxation end? What are its limits? If the objects to which taxation can be applied are unlimited, then the union of the power of taxation with the power of determining the objects to which it may be applied constitute the most tremendous engine of oppression of a free people every [sic] conceived of by the ingenuity of man. Yet, Judge Story assumes that Congress has the power to de­termine what is the common defense and what is the general welfare of the United States, and that when Congress has determined that a certain object is for the common defense or the general welfare, it may appropriate the tax money which it is authorized to levy, for that purpose. This unites in Congress two great powers, dangerous because unlimited, the one to select the objects of its favor, and the other the power to appropriate money from the treasury for such ob­jects. The unlimited power to tax and the unlimited power to determine their benefactions, are, by Judge Story, united in the Congress, and yet Judge Story (Section 909) affirms that this Government was intended to be a government of limited powers only. The relief from this illogical impasse, into which the learned Judge would drive us, is found in the simple examina­tion of Article I, section 8. clause 1, and the seventeen succeeding clauses, constituting the whole sentence. The manner in which this Article was considered and adopted in the Convention, the care with which each grant was discussed and adopted, constituting the limitations on the powers of Congress, show con­clusively that no one power, which could submerge all other powers, was ever intended by the framers oi the Constitution.
And so on through all of the eighteen clauses. This form of the sentence, which involves no change in the paragraphs or words or punctuation of these clauses as adopted by the Convention on the 4th of September, and which is now in the Constitution of the United States, shows conclusively that the object of the framers of this clause was to provide for the com­mon defense and general welfare of the United Stales by giving Congress the powers granted in the eighteen enumerated powers.
Four men of great eminence have shown that the eighteen specific grants of power in this sentence constituting the whole of section 8 constituted the general welfare which the Federal Convention had determined to be necessary for the Government of the United States, and no more.
“(S). To borrow money, etc.
“(1). To regulate commerce”, etc.. etc.
enumerating the 17 specific grants of power in this section. (See also the same author, “Cooleys Consti­tutional Limitations”, pages 11 and 106). Here Judge Coolev first quotes the preamble of the Constitution, which declares that one of the objects for the forma­tion of the Government is to provide for the common defense and general welfare, and adds the significant words that the Constitution has provided a means for accomplishing that by the Federal Government, and that is by laying taxes, borrowing money, regulating commerce, amd adopting the 17 specific grants as that “common defense” and that “general welfare” which the Convention concluded was sufficient for the purpose.
“Once more, at this time: The National Government was intended to ‘promote the general welfare.’ For this reason Congress has power to regulate commerce with the Indians and with foreign nations and to promote the progress of science and of useful arts by securing for a time to authors and iventors an exclusive right to their compositions and discoveries.
“An exclusive property in places fit for forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings, and an ex­clusive legislation over these places, and also for a convenient distance, over such district as may become the seats of the National Government—such exclusive properly and such exclusive legislation will be of great public utility, perhaps of evident public necessity. They are therefore vested in Con­gress by the Constitution of the United States.
“For the exercise of the foreign powers and for the ac­complishment of the foregoing purpose, a revenue is un­questionably indispensable. That Congress may be enabled to exercise and accomplish them, it has the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.
The learned judge gives no hint in this statement that the “general welfare” was anything more than a description of those powers which were subsequently enumerated in the Constitution. There is not an inti­mation in his statement that Congress has any other power than those which are enumerated, and that the words “to provide for the general welfare” are merely a general description of that welfare, which is to be accomplished by carrying out certain enumerated powers.
and so on, continuing through the seventeen grants of power.
Such a provision might have been construed as giving Congress the power to lay and collect taxes to pay the debts, and only for that purpose; what was to become of the other seventeen grants of power that needed money to carry them out ? What about com­merce, post offices, post roads, if the expression “to pay the debts” had been left alone in the clause? Expressio unius exclusio est alterius. Such a form, to say the least, might have endangered the right of Con­gress to appropriate to the other specific grants of power. So some words had to be added to those “to pay the debts” that would make clear the power of Con­gress to appropriate for all federal purposes, as set forth in the subsequent enumerated grants. What should those words be? Three times in two days, on the 22nd and 2srd of August, the Convention indorsed a resolution of this nature: That the Congress should “fulfill the engagements and discharge the debts of the United States”. What engagements had the United States? They are chiefly specified in the eighteen specific grants in the Pinckney plan finally adopted August 16th. Do not the words “fulfill the engage­ments” interpret the meaning of “common defense and general welfare”? Are not those the only engagements of the Government Of the United States? Undoubtedly, having determined for the honor of their country that there should be an express provision to pay the debts some other words would have to be supplied to save to the Congress the right to carry out the grants of power to Congress thereinafter enumerated, and to show that its power to appropriate money was not confined alone to the payment of the debts. What should these additional words be? They selected these words: “To provide for the common defense and general wel­fare” as they embraced all the subsequent grants of power which the Convention had already determined should constitute that amount of common defense and of general welfare which the Federal Government ought to control; and being merely words of general import and without power in the Articles of Confed­eration from which they came, brought with them to the Constitution of the United States the same in­nocuous character.
Now follow the steps in their adoption.
On in the 31st of August, on motion of Mr. Sher­man, a committee of eleven was appointed, to whom was referred “such parts of the Constitution as have been postponed and such parts of reports as have been acted on”. This committee consisted of Gilman of New Hampshire, Rufus King of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Brearly of New Jersey, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Dickinson of Delaware, Carroll of Maryland, Madison of Virginia, Williamson of North Carolina, Pierce Butler of South Carolina, and Abraham Baldwin of Georgia. All ex­cept Morris and Brearly had served in the Continental Congress, and were familiar, therefore, with the Articles of Confederation, and the lack of power of the words in these Articles.
And the claim is made by the followers of Mr. Hamil­ton that these words constitute a substantive grant of power to Congress to pass all and any laws effecting the general welfare of the people of the United States; and while Judge Story, in a luminous argument shows such a claim to be preposterous, he claims that, under these words, Congress may make appropriations for any object which in their judgment they may believe to be for the common defense or general welfare of the people of the United States, i. e., that Congress can appropriate money to an institution that it is denied the power to create. The question, therefore, is brought sharply to this issue: Did the men constituting this committee intend, by the insertion of these words, to destroy the Pinckney plan containing only specific grants of power to Congress, which had been passed unanimously by the Convention without a single nega­tive vote on the 6th of August previously? An ex­amination of this committee will show that the majority of them could never have agreed to any such proposi­tion. The known sentiments of at least seven of them, and probably nine, show conclusively that their inser­tion of these words was never considered by them as authorizing the construction put upon them by the Hamiltonians, or by the learned Judge Story. Among this number, Mr. Madison stands out preeminently as having shown and demonstrated beyond question that these words did not have, and could not have, such meaning. The evidence of their positions may be gathered from several sources.
Mr. Abraham Baldwin, a member of this com­mittee, on June 17, 1798, as a Member of Congress, uses this language.
On the 16th of July, in the Convention, Mr. Pierce Butler, also a member of this committee, and Mr. Gorham of Massachusetts and Mr. Rutlcdge of South Carolina were participants in a debate in the Conven­tion which showed Mr. Butler was favorable to specific grants of power to Congress, and was objecting to general and indefinite grants that were suggested. But there was one gentleman on the committee, Mr. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who knew that these words as reported by the committee were the death knell to the proposition of Mr. Hamilton, as may be seen from the following incident.
For confirmation of the above see “The Framing of the Constitution”, Max Farrand, page 182.
It is of interest to note that Abraham Baldwin, a member of this committee, was a member of tlie Federal Convention and a Member of the same Congress (the Fifth) that Gallatin was, and engaged with him in this debate, and he doubtlessly heard Gallatin’s state­ment, and there was no denial of it from him.
Who was the member from Pennsylvania in the Convention who attempted this “trick”? It is easy to ascertain who he was. In being designated as one of a committee of revisal and arrangement in the Conven­tion we find that the member from Pennsylvania on that committee was Gouverneur Morris, who, it is seen, is also a member of this committee of eleven that brought in this report. And who was the member from Connecticut that discovered the “trick”? By the process of elimination this is easily discovered because Mr. Gallatin said “he is now dead”. The words were spoken in 1798. Johnson, Ellsworth and Roger Sher­man were the members of the Convention from Con­necticut. Johnson and Ellsworth died after 1800, and Roger Sherman died in 1793; and Roger Sherman, who detected this “trick”, was a member of this com­mittee of eleven that brought in this report, and, hav­ing prevented Morris from making the change by throwing these words into a distinct paragraph, it showed first that Sherman was opposed to the un­limited power attempted to be given to these words by Morris’ “trick”, and (second), that Morris was trying to make the change to carry out Hamilton’s idea, be­cause the clause as adopted September 4th was fatal to Hamilton’s desire for unlimited powers.
Had the Constitution been ratified in that form, there would be considerable ground for asserting that it contained the Hamiltonian idea of unlimited power.
Another evidence of the views of this committee is to be gathered by the statement made by Luther Martin, one of the greatest figures in the Convention, who, on his return home, addressed the Maryland Legislature, giving an account of the Convention. In it he said there were three parties in the Convention; first, the Hamiltonians, who desired to annihilate the States and establish a government of a monarchical nature ; secondly, those who were opposed to the aboli­tion of the States and the adoption of a monarchical government, but who wished tor greater powers for the great States in the Union; and third, “was what I consider truly federal and republican; this party was nearly equal in number with the other two and was composed of the delegations from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and in part from Mary­land: also of some individuals! from other representa­tions”.
On this committee of eleven were Mr. Sherman from Connecticut, Mr. Brearly from New Jersey, Mr. Dickinson from Delaware, and Mr. Carroll from Mary­land.
Mr. Jefferson said of John Dickinson of Delaware that he was “an orthodox advocate of the true prin­ciples of our new government. (Jefferson’s Works (Washington ed.) Vol. V, page 249).
In “The Framing of the Constitution” by Max Farrand, page 81, he mentions a number of the mem­bers of the Convention who advocated a strong national government and those who were opposed to such, among the latter, he names Sherman, Brearly, Dickin­son and Butler.
The position of Hugh Williamson of North Caro­lina, a member of the committee of eleven might well be determined alone by the position of North Carolina in refusing to ratify the Constitution for two years because of the need of amendments. As a member of the second North Carolina convention called to ratify the Constitution his position is more clearly seen by a motion made by him to ratify the Constitution as concluded at Philadelphia September 17, 1787. As the Constitution contained, when passed, the exact form of this section and clause recommended by the com­mittee of eleven on the 4th of September, the conclusion is final that he favored that form. (See “North Carolina States Records,” Vol. 22, page 41, Raleigh, 1907).
Thus we find in our conclusion that there is no general welfare clause in the Constitution; that the power of Congress to legislate for every object which in their opinion might be for the benefit of the people, pressed by Mr. Hamilton in the Convention, was six times, directly or indirectly, rejected by that body; and, in spite of that, his followers have sought to con­strue these words as meaning what the authors of the Constitution had six times successively rejected; while Judge Story’s construction lands us in the same morass, a government of unlimited power, though he reaches it by a different road.
These facts show that a large majority of the Com­mittee of Eleven that reported these words to be in­corporated into the first clause of §8 Art. I were strongly opposed to the views of Mr. Hamilton and those of Judge Story that lead to the same end, tho’ by different routes, a government of unlimited pow­ers!!
Primus inter pares. Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4th Wheat. 316.
Gibbons v. Ogden, 9th Wheat. 1.
Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1829-30, on the militia.
Judge Brewer in Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 89, and Fairbanks v. United States, 181 U. S.
Judge Miller in Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wallace 655.
fudge Miller on the Constitution, page 229, note 2.
Mr. Madison, Resolutions of 1798.
Mr. Madison’s Message May 4, 1822.
Veto Message March 3, 1817.
Letter of Madison to Andrew Stevenson.
Supplement to letter to Andrew Stevenson. (Writ­ings of James Madison by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. IX, page 424).
Cooley on Taxation. 2nd edition, page 110.
Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, pages 11 and 106.
Willoughby on the Constitution, Vol. 1, page 40.
James Wilson (Wilson’s Works–Andrews–Vol. 2, pages 56-59).
John C. Calhoun, February 20, 1837. U. S. Senate. (Works of Calhoun, Vol. III, page 36).
Mr. Jefferson on power of Congress to establish Bank of the United States, February 15, 1791.
Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, October 12, 1815, (Works of Jefferson by Paul Leicester Ford, 1905, Vol. XI, page 489).
Von Holst, a strong Federalist, Constitutional Law of the United States, page 118.
Hare, American Constitutional Law, Vol. I, page 242-243.
William A. Duer, Constitutional Jurisprudence, 2nd edition, page 211.
B.J. Sage in “Republic of Republics”.
Calvin Coolidge, addresses of, Budget meeting January 21, 1924, and Annual Message December 8, 1925.
Tucker on the Constitution, Vol. I, pages 477-478-480.
And who upholds the opposite view? Judge Story and Pomeroy. Where lies the weight of authority?

References: §923
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