You are welcome to your opinion and subscription to the republican doctrine.

dan do you even know what letters of marque and reprisal are?
they allow for privateers. legal piracy against ships flying the flag of a specific nation.

Yes. They cost less than a formal declaration of war or an extra-constitutional invasion of another sovereign State.

The point about that specific issue could be, why did we install and de-install the same individual, at exorbitant cost to the US taxpayer? Foreign policy is supposed to be the republican strong suit, not domestic policy.

It seems that the republicans were no better at foreign policy than they are at fiscal conservatism.

Agreed. But, ironically, this misconstruction is exactly what Hamilton picked up and ran with after the constitution was ratified. So, while I think Madison was correct in his reading, the Anti-Federalists were also right to fear the vague nature of the general welfare clause. It was used just as they warned by those eager to expand the scope of the federal government.

Read it again. He's saying that if the general welfare clause was the only indication of congressional power in the constitution, then interpreting it as a specification of a general power might make some sense. But since it isn't, since they went the trouble of carefully enumerating the specific powers of congress, then it's rather nonsensical that think that they would have defined an additional, broad power in a clause modifying the taxation power.

It's actually the reverse. He's saying "Nothing is more common ...[as in "I can understand how you might see it this way"], But ... " and then goes on to explain why they're wrong, why the enumerated powers aren't to be taken as "explanations and qualifications" of the imagined general powers.

This kind of sentence hurts my brain. What do you mean by "general qualifiers on what constitutes the common defense and general welfare"?

It's actually a rather stunning accomplishment to take such a direct refutation of your position and turn it on its head in this way.

I think our Founding Fathers did an excellent job at the convention, with our Constitution.

The (US) left should try to capitalize on the democratic party platform's perceived inertia in favor of "public works". Public sector means of production can provide jobs and incomes as forms of Commerce. The Clinton administration was able to run massive surpluses and achieve the lowest unemployment in thirty years by utilizing a form of public sector means of production to actively compete with the private sector.

The republicans have not been able to achieve anything similar, with even twelve years at their disposal with republican administrations.

With sufficient public sector means of production, we could lower our tax burden such that only general taxes are needed to defray public sector costs.

I think that in a very real sense it does, though indirectly. Given that implementation of the other powers generally requires funding, ie taxes - which can only be levied for "the common defense and general welfare".

Right. And I agree with Madison that this is the proper vehicle for the needed flexibility. It's preferable to "general welfare" because it preserves the limited purposes of government while allowing for pragmatic "wiggle room".

You mean like the Federal balance, state's rights, that sort of thing?

Why would Madison present the view of the Anti-federalists as the correct one, if he was promoting the federalist doctrine in the Federalist Papers?

The federalist argument, that "No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction."; was specifically referring to the Anti-federalist position. It still applies to the republican doctrine; and, our current and extra-constitutional wars on drugs and terror.

Why would the Founding Fathers place in the supreme code law of the land such Words, "as to give meaning to every part which will bear it", merely to have "precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever?" I am glad our Founding Fathers did an excellent job at the convention, with our Constitution since they did not use "an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead."

Especially since the opposing viewpoint is prone to try to confuse issues with "an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead."

Why would a federalist adopt the republican doctrine when promoting the federalist doctrine?

Have you read the amendments that came after the Bill of Rights? I think we have too many amendments already; especially since our Founding Fathers did such an excellent job at the convention with our Constitution.

Are you capable of simple comprehension?

"But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? 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? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter."

Madison vetoed the public works bill for a canal and explained why. His explanation totally destroys your argument.........

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.


More.....

"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, every thing, 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."

The Debates in the Several State ... - Google Books

Madison argues that the "general welfare" clause was limited by the powers listed in the constitution.

‘The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite…’ The Federalist No. 45

What more do you need to know? Madison believed that the General Wlefare clause was limited to the powers listed in the constitution. Since then that clause has been perverted by people like you to mean welfare for corporations and the poor, foreign aid, social security, medicaid, etc, etc, ALL OF WHICH ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

You are citing a veto of a public works bill that could be due to a potential excess of newly invented pork capability by our elected representatives to congress.

Madison was simply resorting to the republican doctrine.

i know!! abolishing slavery, limiting the term of presidency, giving women the right to vote, what a waste of fucking time!!!!

all of these things were so clearly addressed by those amazing, amazing, sages, soothsayers, intellectuals, deities, and political geniuses who were the founding fathers.

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why don't you show a shred of academic honesty and say "ALL OF WHICH ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, PER MADISON, A DUDE FROM THE 18th CENTURY"

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This discussion is now resting on a completely un-substantiated assumption: the only way that public works spending by congress can be constitutional is per the general welfare clause.

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The Constitution that came out of the Convention was gender neutral and did not distinguish by color as some State constitutions did.

Anything that promotes the general welfare and common defense should be Constitutional since it is the ends for which the means of taxation are provided.

correct. it refused to address the barbarity and backwardness of the time, THUS AFFIRMING it.

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