2ndAmendment
06-06-2012, 10:52 AM
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
--James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 21 January 1792
Evidence the "Welfare clause" is misused according to a founder.
"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence."
--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 22 April 1790
Now what would he say about 16 trillion?
"I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic - it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out." -- James Madison (speech to the Congress, 9 April 1789)
Any bets he would not have liked the laws being imposed on business today?
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. ... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." --James Madison - dissertation to the First Congress of the United States
Oops. Seems this is very telling about what was intended; "limited Government."
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." --James Madison [1794] (Pertaining to Congress' appropriation $15,000 for relief of French refugees)
If he was upset over $15,000, what do you think he would say about the $451.9 billion and the $846.1 billion for medical and the $153.1 billion for education?
Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Those that do not study the Constitution and the Founders are doomed to lose what they established.
--James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 21 January 1792
Evidence the "Welfare clause" is misused according to a founder.
"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence."
--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 22 April 1790
Now what would he say about 16 trillion?
"I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic - it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out." -- James Madison (speech to the Congress, 9 April 1789)
Any bets he would not have liked the laws being imposed on business today?
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress. ... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." --James Madison - dissertation to the First Congress of the United States
Oops. Seems this is very telling about what was intended; "limited Government."
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." --James Madison [1794] (Pertaining to Congress' appropriation $15,000 for relief of French refugees)
If he was upset over $15,000, what do you think he would say about the $451.9 billion and the $846.1 billion for medical and the $153.1 billion for education?
Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Those that do not study the Constitution and the Founders are doomed to lose what they established.