Constitution the following lights are furnished by the printed Journal of the Convention which formed it.
The terms appear in the general propositions offered May 29 as a basis for the incipient deliberations, the first of which “Resolved that the Articles of the Confederation ought to be so corrected & enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by their institution, namely—common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare”. On the day following, the proposition was exchanged for Resolved “that an Union of the States merely federal will not accomplish the objects proposed by the Articles of Confederation; namely, common defence, security of liberty and general welfare”.
The inference from the use here made of the terms, & from the proceedings on the subsequent propositions is, that altho’ Common defence & general welfare were objects of the Confederation, they were limited objects, which ought to be enlarged by an enlargement of the particular powers to which they were limited—and to be accomplished by a change in the structure of the Union from a form merely federal to one partly national, and as these general terms are prefixed in the like relation to the several Legislative powers in the new Charter, as they were in the Old, they must be understood to be under like limitations in the new as in the Old.
In the course of the proceedings between the 30th. of May & the 6th. of Augt. the terms Common defence & General welfare as well as other equivalent terms must have been dropped: for they do not appear in the Draft of a Constitution, reported on that day, by a Committee appointed to prepare one in detail; the clause in which those terms were afterwards inserted, being, simply in the Draft “The Legislature of the U. S. shall have power to lay & collect taxes duties, imposts & excises”.
The manner in which the terms became transplanted from the Old into the new System of Government, is explained by a course somewhat adventitiously given to the proceedings of the Convention.
On the 18th. of Augst. among other propositions referred to the Committee which had reported the draft was one “to secure the payment of the Public debt.”, and,
On the same day, was appointed a Committee of Eleven members, (one from each State) “to consider the necessity & expediency of the debts of the several States, being assumed by the U. States”
On the 21st. of Augst. this last Committee reported a clause in the words following “The Legislature of the U. States shall have power to fulfil the engagements, which have been entered into by Congress, and to discharge as well the debts of the U. States, as the debts incurred by the several States, during the late war, for the common
