was every ether special power, except that of giving copyrights to authors, and patents to inventors; the general power of incorporating being whittled down to this shred. Wilson agreed to the fact.—Jefferson's Memoirs.
LETTER OF MR. MADISON TO MR. STEVENSON,
Dated 27th November, 1830,
EXAMINING THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION "TO PAY THE DEBTS, AND PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE, &c."
[extract.]
A special provision, says Mr. Madison, could not have been necessary for the debts of the new Congress; for a power to provide money, and a power to perform certain acts, of which money is the ordinary and appropriate means, must, of course, carry with them a power to pay the expense of performing the acts. Nor was any special provision for debts proposed till the case of the revolutionary debts was brought into view; and it is a fair presumption, from the course of the varied propositions which have been noticed, that but for the old debts, and their association with the terms "common defence and general welfare," the clause would have remained, as reported in the first draft of a constitution, expressing, generally, "a power in Congress to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises," without any addition of the phrase "to provide for the common defence and general welfare." With this addition indeed, the language of the clause being in conformity with that of the clause in the Articles of Confederation, it would be qualified, as in those Articles, by the specification of powers subjoined to it. But there is sufficient reason to suppose that the terms in question would not have been introduced, but for the introduction of the old debts, with which they happened to stand in a familiar, though inoperative, relation. Thus introduced, however, they pass, undisturbed, through the subsequent stages of the Constitution.
If it be asked why the terms "common defence and general welfare," if not meant to convey the comprehensive power which, taken literally, they express, were not qualified and explained by some reference to the particular power subjoined, the answer is at hand—that, although it might easily have been done, and experience shows it might be well if it had been done, yet the omission is accounted for by an inattention to the phraseology, occasioned, doubtless, by the identity with the harmless character attached to it in the instrument from which it was borrowed.
But may it not be asked, with infinitely more propriety, and without the possibility of a satisfactory answer, why, if the terms were meant to embrace not only all the powers particularly expressed, but the indefinite power which has been claimed under them, the intention was not so declared; why, on that supposition, so much critical labor was employed in enumerating the particular powers, and in defining and limiting their extent?
The variations and vicissitudes in the modification of the clause in which the terms "common defence and general welfare" appear, are remarkable, and to be no otherwise explained than by differences of opinion concerning the necessity or the form of a constitutional provision for the debts of the revolution; some of the members apprehending improper claims for losses, by depreciated bills of credit; others, an evasion of proper claims, if not positively brought within the authorized functions of the new government; and others, again, considering the past debts of the United States as sufficiently secured by the principle that no change in the government could change the obligations of the nation. Besides the indications in the Journal, the history of the period sanctions this explanation.
