Painting, 1856, by Junius Brutus Stearns, Washington at Constitutional Convention of 1787, signing of U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. House of Representatives, under new Republican leadership, will not only begin the 112th Congress by reading the entire U.S. Constitution (which specifies how our government will be formed and operate, enumerates the limited powers the federal government has, and is the standard by which all potential laws are measured) on the floor, the new House rules will require that the constitutional authority for any introduced bills:
‘(c)(1) A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor submits for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution. The statement shall appear in a portion of the Record designated for that purpose and be made publicly available in electronic form by the Clerk.
‘‘(2) Before consideration of a Senate bill or joint resolution, the chair of a committee of jurisdiction may submit the statement required under subparagraph (1) as though the chair were the sponsor of the Senate bill or joint resolution.’’.
Hint: the continually perverted “General Welfare Clause” simply will not cut it.
You see, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution were specific in the few powers they granted to the federal government. They had plenty of experience with powerful, out-of-control despotic governments that robbed people of their freedom on the whims of tyrants, and didn’t want anything like that happening under their new government.
The legislative branch, the ONLY portion of our government empowered to create new laws, was given a few areas of authority and these were enumerated in Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
James Madison, known as “the Father of the Constitution” for his primary contribution to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, had this to say about these enumerated powers in Federalist No. 45 (the Federalist Papers were a series of essays which explained the U.S. Constitution in greater depth for the people in the states considering ratification of the Constitution):
The powers delegated by the Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce…The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the states.
Speaking of those “powers reserved to the several states,” the U.S. Constitution makes it clear in the Tenth Amendment that such powers are not the playthings of tyrants or socialists determined to remake the United States into their own corrupt image:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Oh, and the “General Welfare Clause” which liberals so love to use as a blank check to ignore the rest of the Constitution? The founders made it abundantly clear that this clause was not an enumerated power, that it does not grant any specific power to the federal government. Rather, it speaks only of the general intent of the enumerated (specific) powers, e.g. to be used for the general good of the country.
James Madison
Said “Father of the Constitution” James Madison
You see, it was quite clear that the founders intended our government to be a limited one, “possessing enumerated powers,” not one that could and would run roughshod over the liberty of the American people…as it has done since the days of FDR and his “New Deal” (which was an unconstitutional “Bad Deal”).
Madison further elaborated that if one contended that the General Welfare Clause could be used as a blank check to authorize any law outside the enumerated powers:
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.
Madison further annihilated the excuse of unconstitutional exercise of power in Federalist No 41:
Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general welfare.”
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If 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 whatsoever? 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 nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and 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, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson also spoke to the limited powers of the federal government:
And
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
In 1817, Jefferson also elaborated on a point I made earlier:
Our tenet ever was…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton also made it clear that our government was a limited one as he wrote in Federalist No. 81
And no, wealth redistribution is NOT a legal authority of the federal government, not even under the guise of “charity.” Madison spoke to this perversion of the General Welfare Clause:
Also, as you might have noted in reading the new rule, legislation introduced in the Senate doesn’t get a constitutional pass either, even though the Leftist Democrats sill control that chamber. Bills and joint resolutions that begin in the Senate will receive the same constitutional scrutiny.
Will the socialists in both the House and Senate still do their best to defend and pass unconstitutional laws (such as ObamaCare, cap and trade, and a host of others). Bet on it. You’d be a fool not to.
But this provides those in our government who take their oath to the Constitution seriously, as well as the American people, another tool we can use to fight these usurpations of liberty and the Constitution.
Liberals see the U.S. Constitution and its limits on the federal government as an impediment to their socialist agenda, a hurdle to be cleared or got-around or ignored in pursuit of their agenda. In a way, they are right about this: the founders did indeed craft the Constitution to serve as a bulwark against assaults on the freedom of the American people. For too long have the American people allowed the enemies of freedom to scale the defending wall of the Constitution and go over it unchallenged. It’s time we defended the wall of the Constitution and used it to repel petty tyrants in our own government.
When socialists try to rob us of our property and freedom with unconstitutional legislation, other representatives had better hold the line against such perversions. Rest assured, the Tea Party movement and the American people in general will be holding them accountable–through letters, emails and phone calls to congress, and through our votes in 2012.
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