4. Congressional Do’s and Don’ts
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE
“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, everything, 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
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EPISODE FOUR: Congressional Do’s & Don’ts
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE
“Consider for a moment the immeasurable difference between the Constitution limited in its powers to the enumerated objects, and expounded as it would be by the import claimed for the phraseology in question.
“The difference is equivalent to two Constitutions, of characters essentially contrasted with each other–the one possessing powers confined to certain specified cases, the other extended to all cases whatsoever;…
“Can less be said…than that it is impossible that such a Constitution as the latter would have been recommended to the States by all the members of that body whose names were subscribed to the instrument? … Is it credible that such a power would have been unnoticed and unopposed in the Federal Convention? In the State Conventions, which contended for, and and proposed restrictive and explanatory amendments? And in the Congress of 1789, which recommended so many of these amendments? A power to impose unlimited taxes for unlimited purposes could never have escaped…those public bodies.
“Constitution is a limited one, possessing no power not actually given, and carrying on the face of it a distrust of power beyond the distrust indicated by the ordinary forms of free Government.”
– James Madison
EPISODE FOUR: Congressional Do’s & Don’ts
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE
“Nothing is more certain, than that the forms of liberty may be retained, when the substance is gone. In government, as well as in religion, ‘The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.’”
– John Dickinson, Constitution Signer
EPISODE FOUR: Congressional Do’s & Don’ts
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The founding father responsible for the “promote the progress of science & useful arts” clause was Noah Webster
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE
EPISODE FOUR: Congressional Do’s & Don’ts
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“Shall we establish nothing good because we know it cannot be eternal? Shall we live without government because every constitution has its old age and its period? Because we know that we shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen our life?…
“Far from it, Sir: it only requires the more watchful attention to settle government upon the best principles and in the wisest manner that it may last as long as the nature of things will permit.”
– John Witherspoon
“All that the best men can do is to persevere in doing their duty to their country and leave the consequences to Him Who made it their duty, being neither elated by success, however great, nor discouraged by disappointment, however frequent and mortifying.”
“We must go home to be happy, and our home is not in this world. Here we have nothing to do but our duty, and by it to regulate our business and our pleasure.”
– John Jay, first Supreme Court Chief Justice
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CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE
EPISODE FOUR TAKE AWAYS:
- Remember Jurisdictions!
- Verify the meaning of words in the Constitution based on their definition at the time, not by what they mean today