Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Dunedan Right here: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Amendment 10 If the Constitution does not -explicitly- authorise something, the Federal Gov't has no right, authority, or business doing it.

[...] to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

—The general welfare clause of the United States Constitution

[...] The terms "general welfare'' were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the "general welfare'' and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.

It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the national legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general interests of learning of agriculture, of manufactures, and of commerce are within the sphere of the national councils as far as regards an application of money.

The only qualification of the generality of the phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this—That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be general and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.

No objection ought to arise to this construction from a supposition that it would imply a power to do whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the general welfare. A power to appropriate money with this latitude which is granted too in express terms would not carry a power to do any other thing, not authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implication. [...]

—Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, December 5, 1791