One of the most blatant attacks on our constitutionally limited system of government and its defined and limited powers by our Supreme Court was upholding FDR’s Social Security crap.
In the Courts’ written opinions, Helvering v. Davis,301 U.S. 619 (1937), and Steward Machine Co., which upheld the Social Security Act, the Court cited the Butler decision decided the previous year and went on to assert Hamilton’s view concerning the phrase “general welfare” prevails over that of Madison, and, the Court will not “resurrect the contest”.
In other words, the Court was not interested in reviewing the historical record during the making of our Constitution to document the meaning of “general welfare” as it was understood by our founders during its framing and ratification process. Instead, the Court use an irrelevant random comment made by Hamilton concerning the phrase “general welfare” made after the Constitution had been adopted in order to uphold the progressive’s Social Security Act as being constitutional. And the Court totally ignored the meaning of “general welfare” as articulated during the framing and ratification process of our Constitution, even ignoring what Hamilton himself stated during this process which contradicted Hamilton’s comment after the Constitution had been adopted. And that [using random comments made after the adoption of our Constitution] to support the Courts conclusion, violated a cardinal rule of constitutional construction.
16 Am Jur 2d Constitutional law
Meaning of Language
Ordinary meaning, generally
”Words or terms used in a constitution, being dependent on ratification by the people voting upon it, must be understood in the sense most obvious to the common understanding at the time of its adoption…”__ (my emphasis).
The Court is not free to make the words or phrases in our Constitution mean whatever they so desire, but are confined to their original understanding as understood by our founding fathers and those who ratified the Constitution, at the time of its adoption!
The fact is Hamilton’s comment made after the Constitution was adopted is in direct conflict with what Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 83 to gain support for the adoption of the Constitution. In No. 83 Federalist, and in explaining the meaning of the Constitution, Hamilton, in crystal clear language, refers to a “specification of particulars” which he goes on to say “evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority“.
Hamilton wrote:
"…the power of Congress…shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended…"
This view expressed by Hamilton in the Federalist Papers during the ratification debates is also in harmony with what Madison states during the framing and ratification debates:
Madison, in No. 41 Federalist, explaining the meaning of the general welfare clause to gain the approval of the proposed constitution, states the following:
"It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes…to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and the 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 [the antifederalists] for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction…But what color can this objection have, when a specification of the object alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not ever separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?..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…But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning…is an absurdity."
Likewise, in the Virginia ratification Convention Madison explains the general welfare phrase in the following manner so as to gain ratification of the constitution: “the powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”[3Elliots 95]
Also see Nicholas, 3 Elliot 443 regarding the general welfare clause, which he pointed out "was united, not to the general power of legislation, but to the particular power of laying and collecting taxes…"
Similarly, George Mason, in the Virginia ratification Convention informs the convention
"The Congress should have power to provide for the general welfare of the Union, I grant. But I wish a clause in the Constitution, with respect to all powers which are not granted, that they are retained by the states. Otherwise the power of providing for the general welfare may be perverted to its destruction.". [3Elliots 442]
For this very reason the Tenth Amendment was quickly ratified to intentionally put to rest any question whatsoever regarding the general welfare clause, and thereby cut off the pretext to allow Congress, or the courts, to extended federal powers via the wording provide for the “general welfare“.
JWK
"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void. ___ Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (1858)
