Six Categories of Federal Power

   ...we will review the powers given the federal government.  The classes of federal power relate to the following issues:

       1. Security against foreign danger.

       2. Regulation of interactions with foreign nations.

       3. Maintain harmony and interactions among the States.

       4. Miscellaneous objects of general utility.

       5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts.

       6. Provisions giving effectiveness to these powers.

1.  Security Against Foreign Danger

Federalist Paper # 42 [paragraphs 9-12], Federalist Papers: Modern English Edition Two (2008):

3.  Provide Harmony Among States

9    The third class of powers provide for harmony among the States.

10  This classification could include the re­straints on State authority and some judicial power.  But the limits on State authority are a separate class and judicial powers will be examined when we discuss the structure and organization of the government.  I will confine myself to a brief review of the remaining powers under this third de­scription:

·          regulate commerce among the States and the Indian tribes,

·         coin and regulate the value of money,

·         punish counterfeiting coins and securities of the United States,

·         fix the standard of weights and measures,

·         make a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws of bank­ruptcy,

·         prescribe the way that public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each State will be proved and the effect they will have in other States,

·          establish post offices and post roads

Regulate Commerce among States

11       The existing Confederacy doesn't have the power to regulate commerce between the States.  Without this provi­sion, the power to regu­late foreign commerce is pointless.

          Some noncommercial States must import and expor­t through other States.  If they could, States would charge import and export taxes on merchandise and material passing through their State.  This would create animosities and probably end in violence

          Commercial States' desire to collect indirect taxes from their uncommercial neighbors must seem both unfair and politically inexpedient.  It would be a poor political decision.  Resentment and self-interest would make the people who have to pay the State duties find longer routes without the added taxes for their trade.  However, as a State makes the decision to tax goods that travel through it, the people who want immediate revenue will drown out the people who rationally argue that it is a bad political decision.  The mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of a larger interest, is drowned out by the clamors of impatient avarice for immediate and immod­erate gain.

12       The experience in other countries shows that the federal government needs to be able to regulate trade between the States.

          In Switzerland, each canton [state] must allow mer­chandise passage through its jurisdiction into other cantons without additional tolls.

          A law in Germany forbids the princes and states from charging tolls or cus­toms on bridges, rivers, or passages without the consent of the emperor and the diet [legislature].  However, this law, like many others in the Germany, hasn’t been followed, producing the problems predicted here.

          In the Union of the Netherlands, states must get permission to charge imposts that are disadvantageous to neighboring states.

*****************************************************************

Federalist Paper # 41 [paragraphs 5-7, 23-25] original text

[5]       ...it will be proper to review the several powers conferred on the government of the Union; and that this may be the more conveniently done they may be reduced into different classes as they relate to the following different objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2. Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 3. Maintenance of harmony and proper intercourse among the States; 4. Certain miscellaneous objects of general utility; 5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6. Provisions for giving due efficacy to all these powers.

[6]        The powers falling within the FIRST class are those of declaring war and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and borrowing money.

[7]       Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must be effectually confided to the federal councils.

[23]       Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. 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. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

[24]       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; 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. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare.

[25]       "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.

Federalist Paper # 42 [paragraphs 9-12], original text

[9]       The powers included in the THIRD class are those which provide for the harmony and proper intercourse among the States.

[10]       Under this head might be included the particular restraints imposed on the authority of the States, and certain powers of the judicial department; but the former are reserved for a distinct class, and the latter will be particularly examined when we arrive at the structure and organization of the government. I shall confine myself to a cursory review of the remaining powers comprehended under this third description, to wit: to regulate commerce among the several States and the Indian tribes; to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin; to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the current coin and securities of the United States; to fix the standard of weights and measures; to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws of bankruptcy, to prescribe the manner in which the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each State shall be proved, and the effect they shall have in other States; and to establish post offices and post roads.

[11]       The defect of power in the existing Confederacy to regulate the commerce between its several members, is in the number of those which have been clearly pointed out by experience. To the proofs and remarks which former papers have brought into view on this subject, it may be added that without this supplemental provision, the great and essential power of regulating foreign commerce would have been incomplete and ineffectual. A very material object of this power was the relief of the States which import and export through other States, from the improper contributions levied on them by the latter. Were these at liberty to regulate the trade between State and State, it must be foreseen that ways would be found out to load the articles of import and export, during the passage through their jurisdiction, with duties which would fall on the makers of the latter and the consumers of the former. We may be assured by past experience, that such a practice would be introduced by future contrivances; and both by that and a common knowledge of human affairs, that it would nourish unceasing animosities, and not improbably terminate in serious interruptions of the public tranquillity. To those who do not view the question through the medium of passion or of interest, the desire of the commercial States to collect, in any form, an indirect revenue from their uncommercial neighbors, must appear not less impolitic than it is unfair; since it would stimulate the injured party, by resentment as well as interest, to resort to less convenient channels for their foreign trade. But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.

[12]       The necessity of a superintending authority over the reciprocal trade of confederated States, has been illustrated by other examples as well as our own. In Switzerland, where the Union is so very slight, each canton is obliged to allow to merchandises a passage through its jurisdiction into other cantons, without an augmentation of the tolls. In Germany it is a law of the empire, that the princes and states shall not lay tolls or customs on bridges, rivers, or passages, without the consent of the emperor and the diet; though it appears from a quotation in an antecedent paper, that the practice in this, as in many other instances in that confederacy, has not followed the law, and has produced there the mischiefs which have been foreseen here. Among the restraints imposed by the Union of the Netherlands on its members, one is, that they shall not establish imposts disadvantageous to their neighbors, without the general permission.

**********************************************************************************

You can help support KNOWFREE by purchasing your copies HERE

* All Federalist Paper quotes are from The Federalist Papers: Modern English Edition Two, available on my website and Amazon.com for $24.95 http://Mary.Webster.org