The “General Welfare” clause and the flip-flop we still feel today.
Unlike most Founders Keepers blogs, I will not delve into the personal history of the subject, but will try to keep focused on just one aspect of his philosophy. That one aspect revolves around the General Welfare clause of the Constitution.
“The congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes. . . [to] provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...” Article 1, section 8, paragraph 1.
In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton seems to agree with James Madison that the general welfare clause is a limitation on congress; ensuring that money collected from all states would not be spent for the betterment of a single state. And that the federal government should be limited to acting on the enumerated powers only.
An example, from Federalist #7: “There is, perhaps, nothing more likely to disturb the tranquility of nations than their being bound to mutual contributions for any common object that does not yield an equal and coincident benefit.”
From Federalist #9: "It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration.”
Federalist #17: “The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction.”
Federalist #27: “...the laws of the Confederacy, as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land. . .“
But something happened to Mr. Hamilton's viewpoint once he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Washington. Always afraid the federal government was too weak to survive, he made plans to bestow more and more power centrally – just to make sure the federal government would be strong enough to thwart any usurpation by the states.
Hamilton's first move was to propose the national government absorb all of the Revolutionary War debts of the states. The federal government was already borrowing money just to pay the interest on its own debts. Why take on the states' debts as well? To guarantee the states would forever be beholding to the federal government. Madison and Jefferson protested, but Hamilton bought their votes simply by steering the building of the nation's capital to the banks of the Potomac river.
Secretary Hamilton revealed his next scheme: He wanted to increase the tariff (import tax) and give that additional money to business and industry. To justify this obvious violation of the constitution, Mr. Hamilton reasoned that helping industry compete with the Europeans was a benefit for the entire nation. To validate his claim, he cited the General Welfare clause. Suddenly, instead of a barrier to actions the general welfare clause became the catch-all excuse for anything the government wants to do.
Ever since, politicians in Washington, DC (on the banks of the Potomac) have pulled out the same logic for each redistribution of wealth project or program they can think of.