Well you are WRONG, The Anti-Federalists were arguing that the general welfare clause of the first part of section 8 amounted to a general grant of power to spend and legislate for anything related to the "general welfare" (this is exactly the position YOU hold). Madison flat out rejected this interpretation on several counts:

1. If the general welfare clause were a grant of power, then the subsequent list of powers specifically enumerated would be meaningless, as all those specific powers would be already included in the preceeding general power.

2. That the general welfare clause is actually a qualification to the preceeding taxation power, and not an independent grant of power.

BECAUSE THE DIDN'T ENUMERATE ANY GENERAL FUCKING POWER, The general welfare clause as Madison CLEARLY states to anyone who isn't a complete idiot is NOT an enumerated power, but a qualification on the preceeding taxation power (hence it being separated from the taxation power by a mere comma and not beginning with the word "to" capitalized as is the case for every other enumerated power).

The whole point of the particular powers listed is because there WAS NO general power that covered ANY of these things.

If there were already a "general" power to provide for the common defense, then the subsequent enumeration of a power to raise and provide for an army and navy would be completely redundant and meaningless.

Madison actual point was that it is absurd, given a listing of very specific enumerated powers, to interpret the common defense and general welfare clauses as an enumeration of general powers to spend and legislate. If you have alread created a general power to provide for the common defense there is NO conceivable reason to subsequently stipulate specific powers which would already be provided for under the general power.

For example, if I were to say the following to you:

You may have my keys to enter my home while I am on vacation, to take care things while I am away;

To water my plants;

To feed my cat;

To take in my mail; and

To turn the lights on at night and off in the morning.


Have I given you permission to call a designer and arrange for the remodelling of my kitchen which you felt was badly in need of renovation, or even to hire a maid service to come in and clean out things you considered unsightly? It would certainly be the case if I had broadly given you a blanket power to do anything in my house you deem to "take care of things", but given the fact that I listed specific things, any rational person would understand that you do NOT in fact have general permission to do anything you deem to be "taking care of things", but that your actions are limited to those specific tasks I listed.

Now, if I were to have said "for example", affirmatively indicating that the list of particulars was meant as a non-exhaustive set of examples, you might have a reasonable position. But nothing in the text or structure of Section 8 & 9 suggests in any way that the list of specific powers enumerated were meant to be mere examples of a much broader set of general powers.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane