power otherwise conferred, but is essentially outside of the Constitution, and no part of the supreme law of the land. It is said also that it is not in section 8 of Article I., - the only other place where the words "provide for the common defence" occur,- because the sole object of that clause is to confer on Congress the power of taxation, or, as some say, that of taxation and appropriation; either of which excludes from it any more general power of national defence, than such as may be made by the use of a revenue derived from taxation. It certainly is not in any other clause; for the same words, or any others of equivalent signification, are nowhere else to be found in the instrument.

$95. Alexander Hamilton says the common defence is one of "the principal purposes to be answered by union;" and James Madison says, "it is an avowed and essential object of the American Union."1 The idea seems to be taken directly from this first sentence of the Constitution; for it is here expressed precisely, and not at all in any other part. Yet these writers do not expressly refer to it as the origin of this or any other power of the government, or as imposing on them the duty of executing it. The Constitution had never been objected to on this ground; and it was no part of their duty, as advocates of its adoption, to enlarge the field of operation for the objectors. They

1 Federalist, Nos. 23, 41.

both agree that the power must be unlimited in its extent, though they do not appear to contemplate it as embracing particulars in addition to, and differing in nature and character from, those specifically mentioned and assigned, out of the general powers of the government, to the legislative department. Hamilton says,

"The authorities essential to the care of the common defence are these: To raise armies; build and equip fleets; prescribe rules for the government of both; to direct their operations; to provide for their support." Madison says,

They are those of declaring war, and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and borrowing money." These are all specified powers of different departments, either the legislative or executive, to whom they are distributed by the Constitution; but they fall far short of embracing the whole curriculum necessary to enable the government to accomplish their great and comprehensive duty, as here prescribed, "to provide for the common defence."

§ 96. They may be sufficient to enable them to carry on war when it actually comes, as it may, with or without being declared. But how do they get the providential power to do many other and more important things, by way of preparation, to render these effectual? To build, stock, furnish, man, and maintain fortresses,

magazines, armories, arsenals, dock-yards, shipyards, founderies, manufactories, and machinery for the fabrication of all kinds of warlike implements; military roads, ships of war, and shipcanals; working mines, growing ship-timber, and raising hemp? All this and much more when there is no war, nor prospect of any? To encourage sailors by bounties, and give education, in all the sciences and mysteries of war, to young men fitting for the military or naval service of the country? All these powers, to a greater or less extent, the government have been using ever since it was established; and must continue to use, or give up their chief duty of providing for the common defence. And yet they are none of them specified in any list of the particular duties of any department.

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§ 97. They are included in the general duty and power of the government to provide for the common defence;" and, so far as they are legislative, they devolve directly on Congress, as the depository of all the legislative power of the government, and also by the special authority to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested in the government of the United States.1

1 In Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. R., Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, says, “The powers given, as fairly understood, render it [the government] competent . to the objects for which it is declared

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to be instituted." This refers directly to the objects mentioned in the enacting clause, and pronounces the powers of the government adequate to the accomplishment of them all.

When the people say they ordain this government on purpose "to provide for the common defence," to assert that they confer no power for the purpose is an attempt not only to cancel this part of the Constitution, but absolutely to stultify the nation. That a Constitution

instituting a national government could have been made expressly for six great national and specific purposes, and yet include or imply no duty or authority to effect either of them, is too absurd for belief without proof, and too contradictory to be supported by proof. "That would be," in the language of Judge Story, "to create a power for a certain end, and then deny the end intended by the power.'

CHAPTER IX.

THE GENERAL WELFARE.

§ 98. THE fifth avowed purpose of the Constitution was to "promote the general welfare." In the history of the government, it has not been usual to encounter objections to the Constitution, on the ground that it was not sufficiently liberal in its grant of powers to the government. Of course its friends have not felt themselves called upon to propound an elucidation and exposition of those parts of it which were most likely to call forth objections of the opposite character, already sufficiently abundant, and, on account of their ad captandum quality, rather than their substantial weight, superabundantly troublesome. Such parts have been much more liable to be passed over and forgotten. Not a few stanch friends of the Constitution have, at different times, thought it expedient to repudiate and abjure their true and obvious meaning, force, and validity; while more have been willing to overlook and ignore them; and all have actually united with its adversaries in