This little clause, found twice in the Constitution if I am not mistaken, is the favorite clause of the Left and the one used most often as a pretext to foist whatever form of wealth-redistributing, soft tyranny they wish upon the public. What did the founders, the actual writers of the Constitution, have to say about it?
First, James Madison.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the 'Articles of Confederation,' and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted."
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792
Now, Thomas Jefferson.
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817
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