Ok, well you're ideas of limited government are more substantial than I realized. With this view, I can see long list of current federal programs that involve as much or more legislative backing than the post office, yet aren't covered by enumerated powers. Are you agreeing that all of those are technically unconstitutional?

I haven't read that much about the Fed, but Hamilton's first national bank was justified with the "necessary and proper" clause - arguing that all of the other powers would be facilitated by a national bank. Jefferson fought this bitterly, naturally, claiming that such an indirect rationale was well outside the intent of the last power.

This was before Hamilton "discovered" the general welfare exploit, which then became his argument for a host of expanded federal powers.

Let me know what you find out.

you guys are starting to sound like a bunch of kids that didn't get into law school.

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Is that problem? We started a separate thread so that other people wouldn't have to read it. Can't you just ignore it?

i wasn't aware this was a private discussion. if you didn't notice, i was involved in that thread as well. do i have your permission to post here?

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No permission required. I'm just not sure why you'd bother if it's only to insult people having a discussion.

perhaps i am interested in having a discussion, but cannot find a place to butt in when the conversation is on an elementary level.

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I'd need to look at the specifics. The U.S. government has certainly done things in the past (and presently) that I think are legally dubious. What are you thinking of specifically? (I'll note in passing that the regulation of commerce clause is pretty broad and empowering, too.)

I think Jefferson was right as far as his opposition to Hamilton's overall reasoning, but wrong specifically with respect to the bank. I have read a little about Hamilton's reasoning here, and he extended the "necessary and proper" clause beyond its proper scope. Hamilton appears to have said that any government by its very nature was sovereign "and includes by force of the term a right to attainment of the ends...which are not precluded by restrictions & exceptions specified in the constitution." Here we have the idea, foreign to federalism, that the federal government can do whatever it wants except what it is expressly forbidden to do. Obviously (to me) that's not the way the Constitution is set up. He was acting as if his original Constitution proposal, which would have established a unified government and converted the states into the equivalent of French Departments (from today's France that is), had been adopted. That is, Hamilton was right as regards government in general, but wrong as regards the U.S. federal government, which shares power with the states and is precluded from some legitimate government functions, which are reserved for the states.

However, looking into the situation of the time, with a serious problem of multiple currencies in circulation and no way to stabilize them, and considering that one of the powers given to Congress is "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin," Hamilton was on solid ground in arguing that a national bank was necessary and proper to enable the government to do those things.

As far as the national bank was concerned, I believe Hamilton was right here, but he was likely to pursue things beyond what was justified. Just as, in my opinion, Jefferson argued for limitations on the federal government that did not really exist. The two men had a conflict of vision which can be taken as archetypical of the struggles between the Federalists/Whigs/Republicans and the Democratic Republicans/Democrats in the pre-Civil War era. Hamilton saw an industrialized, great-power America, and wanted a strong central government (without any effective limits except for basic protection of civil liberties) to facilitate this. Jefferson saw a nation of small yeoman farmers, like an idealized version of an agrarian, pre-industrial civilization without aristocrats or serfs (one may see a certain irony in a slaveowning quasi-aristocrat pursuing such a vision, but he did, sincerely I believe). George Washington as president steered a compromise course between the two, leaning towards Hamilton's vision but pulling back from Hamilton's extremes, seeing them as unworkable or premature. He used Hamilton and Jefferson to check each other, during the time both were in the Cabinet.

Not much so far in regard to constitutional law. I think the constitutional issues must have been pretty well settled by 1913. The Fed was after all the third national banking system in this country.

Then just answer two questions.

How many hours have you spent reading about government fraud, abuse and pork?

Why do you think Jefferson and Madison both believed that a loose interpretation of the General Welfare clause would lead to making most of the Constitution meaningless?

We'll see.

None of your business. You know damned well I will never answer baiting questions of this nature, because it would implicitly authorize your assuming a position of authority in this discussion to which you have no right. You must justify your assertions on logical and evidential grounds like everyone else; you do not get a pass by asserting, "I've studied this more than you so I know and you don't."

Because they were pursuing the agrarian vision I described above, and were biased in favor of central government as limited as practicable consistent with the minimal needs of such a society. Their expressions were in service to that vision, and not in fact accurate.

If you add up all the money the government wastes every year, it is beyond sickening. Most of this waste would have never been possible, without a loose interpretation of the General Welfare clause. Through fraud, abuse, corruption and mismanagement, our FEDGOv wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Did you see the example of fighting GOTH culture?

Here are a few more tidbits you can ignore.

The U.S. government is spending $2.6 million to make sure prostitutes in China consume less alcohol while working. As part of the five-year study that the National Institutes of Health bankrolled, researchers are visiting more than 100 houses of prostitution to monitor their employees, designated as FSWs, or female sex workers.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study on the use of ecstasy, LSD and other “party drugs” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. To do this, U.S. taxpayers will invest $117,876 for the three-year study, conducted by researchers from the University of Delaware, who will work in collaboration with researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex.

The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount—nearly one-third—is wasted in overpayments.

Since World War II, the U.S. has spent $1.2 trillion on foreign aid to 70 countries – and all are worse off than they were in 1980, according to the U.N.

For the Department of Commerce for giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.

For the Health Care Financing Administration for Medicaid payments to psychiatrists for unscheduled, coincidental meetings with patients who were attending basketball games, sitting on stoops, etc. -- the cost of which was between $40 and $80 million from 1981 to 1984.

The National Endowment for the Humanities for a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts.

The Office of Education for spending $219,592 in 1978 to develop a curriculum to teach college students how to watch television.

Government Waste from Boycottliberalism.com

General Welfare my ass.

how many hankercheifs do you use to wipe away all your tears?

if you hate waste at this level, then you must hate government at this level, not size, but level.

lets see if you can differentiate between size and level.

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Norrin, you can always cherry-pick things the government is doing that you don't want them to do or that they're fucking up on. Without a liberal interpretation of the general welfare clause, we would also have no interstate highways, no transcontinental railroads, no Social Security or such socialized medicine services as we have now (absurdly inadequate though they be), no government support for science or the arts, no space program, no aid to the poor. I would not want to do without any of these, nor would I want to close the door on foreign aid altogether which is a valuable tool of diplomacy, even if some individual examples I would like to see changed or abolished.

Hamilton's vision prevailed. We are an industrialized great power. We will never again be a pre-industrial nation of small farmers. (Even to the extent we ever were.) Both he and Jefferson agreed that a stronger central government is a requirement for an industrialized great power, and that's why Jefferson didn't want one, as well as why Hamilton did. Because Jefferson didn't want us to be an industrizalized great power.

But we are. End of story. At this point, once convinced that we can't return to bygone days and his original vision is now impossible, Jefferson himself would be a big-government advocate, although presumably one for the little guy and not in service to big business.

You claim we would not have highways, or transcontinental railroads, but you do not know that. The states could have easily combined resources for such projects. You said no support for science, or the arts, no aid to the poor and I agree with that. None of those things should be done through Federal Tax dollars.

Because we have allowed the FEDGOV to spend on almost anything they want, we created the monster we see today. All the problems that the National debt will cause, ALMOST ALL the problems caused by the FEDERAL RESERVE and most of the problems in the USA can all be traced back to government policies supported by people like you.

Almost every single problem in the US has been made worse by people like you.

You're admitting, apparently, that these are good things.

And that will go on happening. You will just have to hate us, 'cause we're not going to change.

I don't think it's entirely accurate, and more than a little dismissive, to characterize Jefferson's vision as anti-industrial. He was against a strong federal government, that doesn't mean he wanted us all to be backward hillbillies. I doubt seriously if he'd change his mind under the current circumstances. My guess is he'd getting behind the Tenth Amendment movement.