General Welfare Clause: The Truth They Never Teach
“It would be ABSURD to say … Congress may do what they please.”
That was James Madison, obliterating the modern lie that the general Welfare Clause is a blank check for almost unlimited power.
But that’s exactly how it’s treated and used today.
The general Welfare clause had a clear, limited meaning when the Constitution was ratified – and both Madison and Jefferson warned exactly what would happen if it got twisted into something more.
Spoiler alert: They weren’t just right. They were prophetic.
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION ACTUALLY SAYS
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
-Article I, Section 8, Clause 1
Legal scholar Rob Natelson has explained just how badly this clause has been twisted from its original meaning.
“The General Welfare Clause is one of the two principal constitutional pillars supporting the modern federal welfare state – the other being the Commerce Clause.”
Today, politicians and judges treat this clause as permission to spend money on virtually anything – as long as they claim it’s for the “general welfare.”
But that interpretation is flat-out wrong – and Natelson made that clear.
“The General Welfare Clause is said to include an implied spending power used to justify federal spending programs and the regulatory conditions attached to them.”
In fact, that’s why many now refer to it as something else entirely.
“For that reason, the General Welfare Clause sometimes is called the Spending Clause.”
But the clause wasn’t written to authorize everything – it was written to limit Congress. To block favoritism. To keep spending within constitutional bounds.
“The General Welfare Clause is more than a mere ‘non-grant’ of spending power.”
Then he dropped the hammer.
“It was intended to be a sweeping denial of power – specifically, it was intended to impose on Congress a standard of impartiality borrowed from the law of trusts, thereby limiting the legislature’s capacity to ‘play favorites’ with federal tax money.”
A STRICT RESTRAINT ON POWER
In 1831, James Madison made it clear that the general Welfare clause wasn’t a blank check – it was a limit.
“With respect to the words ‘General welfare’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them.”
In other words, the clause doesn’t authorize taxing for whatever Congress wants – only for purposes tied directly to the enumerated powers.
Madison followed with a direct warning – about what would happen if “general Welfare” were twisted into a broad, open-ended power.
“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.”
Thomas Jefferson agreed. The general Welfare clause granted no independent power – it was tied to the powers delegated in the Constitution.
“our tenet ever was … that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated”
Jefferson ripped apart the claim that the clause gave Congress broad power for anything it wanted.
“As it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers”
That meant no power for anything outside the Constitution’s list.
“so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action: consequently that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money”
That was the bottom line: specific powers = specific limits.
STRUCTURE, SYNTAX, AND LIMITS
Madison didn’t wait until after ratification to make this case. In Federalist 41, he called out the exact distortion we live under today.
“It has been urged and echoed, that the power ‘to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,’ amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.”
Madison didn’t just reject that claim – he mocked it.
“No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.”
Then he showed why that argument falls apart – even if you accept its premise.
“Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it”
But even with that concession, he still explained how ridiculous the logic was.
“though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases…”
But he wasn’t done. Madison pointed straight to the structure of the clause itself – including the punctuation.
“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?”
And here’s the point the power-hungry want you to ignore.
“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?”
That wasn’t innovation. Madison was pointing to standard legal construction – the kind everyone at the time would’ve recognized.
“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.”
Madison laid the foundation. Jefferson slammed the door shut: the clause was written to tightly bind Congress to a narrow list of delegated powers.
“It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be be carried into effect.”
And he made it crystal clear: this wasn’t theory – it was settled grammar and structure.
“for in the phrase ‘to lay taxes to pay the debts & provide for the general welfare’ it is a mere question of Syntax whether the two last infinitives are governed by the first, or are distinct & coordinate powers; a question unequivocally decided by the exact definition of powers immediately following.”
FROM THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
The phrase “general Welfare” didn’t begin in 1787. Madison made it clear: the framers lifted it directly from the Articles of Confederation.
“The language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ‘their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare.’”
And it didn’t stop there. The specific phrasing carried over too.
“The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ‘All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury’”
In 1792, Madison reminded Congress: “general Welfare” wasn’t new. And it was never meant to mean unlimited power. He again said the words were already well known – not invented in 1787:
“It is to be recollected, that the terms ‘common defence and general welfare,’ as here used, are not novel terms first introduced into this constitution.”
Madison started with this: These weren’t confusing or misunderstood words. Everyone knew where they came from and what they meant.
“They are terms familiar in their construction, and well known to the people of America. They are repeatedly found in the old articles of confederation”
Even in the Articles – where the wording was just as broad – Madison reminded Congress that no one treated it as a license for unlimited power.
“Although they are susceptible of as great latitude as can be given them by the context here, it was never supposed or pretended that they conveyed any such powers as is now assigned to them.”
Not only was it never assumed to be unlimited – it was always understood to mean the exact opposite.
“On the Contrary, it was always considered as clear and certain, that the old Congress was limited to the enumerated powers; and that the enumeration limited and explained the general terms.”
TWO CHOICES
Jefferson warned exactly what would happen if this clause were treated as an independent grant of power. He started with a reminder that it was a restriction on taxing – not a license to do anything Congress claimed was “good.”
“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”
But if the clause were twisted into a separate power, Jefferson warned, the entire structure of the Constitution would collapse.
“To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.”
Next was the consequence: Reduce the clause to its own power – and the whole Constitution shrinks to one vague idea.
“It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase”
And once Congress claims the right to define what’s good – it also takes for itself the power to do whatever evil it can think of.
“that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the U.S. and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased.”
And in that same 1792 speech, Madison issued a blunt warning. He said there are only two choices – look to the enumerated powers for meaning:
“In fact, the meaning of the general terms in question must either be sought in the subsequent enumerations which limits and details them…”
Or surrender the Constitution entirely:
“…or they convert the government from one limited as hitherto supposed, to the enumerated powers, into a government without any limits at all.”
PROPHETIC WARNINGS
And Madison didn’t stop with theory. He predicted what Congress would start claiming the power to do. First, he suggested, they’d take over religion and education:
“If Congress can apply 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 establish teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the union”
Next, Madison predicted, they’d set up a welfare system – and even take over infrastructure. From there, nothing would be off the table.
“they may assume the provision for 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; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.”
Madison gave the bottom line in a letter to Edmund Pendleton: If “general Welfare” means anything they want – then there are no limits left at all.
“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 subject to particular exceptions.”
In 1791, Madison saw where it all led. If Congress could justify a national bank by appealing to “general welfare” – then nothing was off limits.
“would give to Congress an unlimited power; would render nugatory the enumeration of particular powers; would supercede all the powers reserved to the state governments.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
The general Welfare clause was never a blank check. It wasn’t a loophole. It wasn’t a grant of unlimited power.
It was a restriction – a limit – a line Congress was never supposed to cross. But they crossed it. And the people have let them get away with it for generations.
And everything Madison and Jefferson warned us about?
They told us this would obliterate the structure of the Constitution. They told us it would give Congress the power “to do whatever evil they pleased.”
They warned us. We didn’t listen.
As a result – the former “land of the free” is home to the largest government in world history.
Michael Boldin
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin and Facebook.