Our federal government is no longer limited in its size and scope as envisioned by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Was it really supposed to be limited? Yes, says James Madison, the man who is called “the Father of the Constitution.”
“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.” ~ From a letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792
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“With respect to the 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.” ~ From a letter to James Robertson, 1831
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“In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” ~ Federalist No. 14, 1787
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“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” ~ Federalist No. 58, 1788
