CONSTITUTIONAL MINUTE #10

Since FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), most law schools don’t teach the Constitution.

Instead, they teach decisions of the FDR-dominated Supreme Court which purport to explain why Congress has the power to regulate anything it pleases.

Those law schools thus produced generations of constitutionally illiterate lawyers and judges who have been wrongly taught that three clauses, the “general welfare” clause, the “interstate commerce” clause and the “necessary & proper” clause, permit Congress to do whatever it wants!

So, doesn’t the “general welfare” clause give Congress power to pass any law on any subject as long as it is for the “general Welfare of the United States?”

No, it does not!

James Madison, Father of The Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton, author of most of The Federalist Papers, expressly said The Constitution does not give a general grant of legislative authority to Congress.

Madison and Hamilton in Federalist #41, #83, #45, #39, and #14 all refer to this truth. Here is a good paper with details if you might be interested (and I surely hope you are): https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/does-the-general-welfare-...

First, you must learn what “welfare” meant when the Constitution was ratified:  “Welfare” as used in the Preamble and in Article. 1, Sec. 8, cl. 1, U.S. Constitution, meant “Exemption from any unusual evil or calamity; the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, or the ordinary blessings of society and civil government” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary).

But The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969), added a new meaning: “Public relief – on welfare.  Dependent on public relief”.

Do you see how our Constitution is perverted when new meanings are substituted for original meanings?

Our founders understood that the “general Welfare”, i.e., the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, and the enjoyment of the ordinary blessings of society and civil government, was possible only with a civil government which was strictly limited and restricted in what it was given power to do.