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RE: Then tell us what it means. You won't and can't.(nm)
Posted on: November 7, 2024 at 10:53:30 CT
pickle MU
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Although McClanahan’s review of the Constitution is fairly exhaustive, investigating the debates and intentions behind even relatively inoffensive provisions that generate little heat today, the discriminating reader will be interested in how the author handles the more contentious clauses.
The “general welfare” clause comes under scrutiny first. McClanahan finds no evidence that the broad interpretation one encounters today was part of the stated intention of the Constitution’s supporters, and it is to them, Thomas Jefferson said, that we are to look for proper interpretation.
James Madison, for instance, noted that the Articles of Confederation had included an appeal to the “general welfare,” and no one had taken this to mean the Confederation government had thereby been granted an open-ended authority to legislate on matters other than the ones expressly delegated to it in that document. Moreover, said Madison, a broad interpretation of the clause would have rendered the specific enumeration of powers in Article I, Section 8 nugatory and absurd.
It was Connecticut’s Roger Sherman who moved that the phrase be added, so McClanahan seeks out Sherman’s view of what constituted the general welfare. In June 1787, Sherman said: “The objects of the Union … were few—first, defence against foreign danger; second, against internal disputes and a resort to force; thirdly, treaties with foreign nations; fourthly, regulating foreign commerce, and drawing revenue from it. … All other matters, civil and criminal, would be much better in the hands of the states.”
That, for Sherman, was the “general welfare and common defense.”
Edited by pickle at 10:53:58 on 11/07/24
The “general welfare” clause comes under scrutiny first. McClanahan finds no evidence that the broad interpretation one encounters today was part of the stated intention of the Constitution’s supporters, and it is to them, Thomas Jefferson said, that we are to look for proper interpretation.
James Madison, for instance, noted that the Articles of Confederation had included an appeal to the “general welfare,” and no one had taken this to mean the Confederation government had thereby been granted an open-ended authority to legislate on matters other than the ones expressly delegated to it in that document. Moreover, said Madison, a broad interpretation of the clause would have rendered the specific enumeration of powers in Article I, Section 8 nugatory and absurd.
It was Connecticut’s Roger Sherman who moved that the phrase be added, so McClanahan seeks out Sherman’s view of what constituted the general welfare. In June 1787, Sherman said: “The objects of the Union … were few—first, defence against foreign danger; second, against internal disputes and a resort to force; thirdly, treaties with foreign nations; fourthly, regulating foreign commerce, and drawing revenue from it. … All other matters, civil and criminal, would be much better in the hands of the states.”
That, for Sherman, was the “general welfare and common defense.”
Edited by pickle at 10:53:58 on 11/07/24
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RE: Then tell us what it means. You won't and can't.(nm) - pickle MU - 11/7 10:53:30