Memorandum not used in Letter to Mr. Stevenson.[1]
These observations will be concluded with a notice of the argument in favor of the grant of a full power to provide for common defence and general welfare, drawn from the punctuation in some editions of the Constitution.
According to one mode of presenting the text, it reads as follows: “Congress shall have power—To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises, shall be uniform.” To another mode, the same with commas vice semicolons.
According to the other mode, the text stands thus: “Congress shall have power; To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises: To pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
And from this view of the text, it is inferred that the latter sentence conveys a distinct substantive power to provide for the common defence and general welfare.[2]
Without inquiring how far the text in this form would convey the power in question; or admitting that any mode of presenting or distributing the terms could invalidate the evidence which has been exhibited, that it was not the intention of the general or of the State Conventions to express, by the use of the terms common defence and general welfare, a substantive and indefinite power; or to imply that the general terms were not to be explained and limited by the specified powers succeeding them, in like manner as they were explained and limited in the former Articles of Confederation from which the terms were taken; it happens that the authenticity of the punctuation which preserves the unity of the clause can be as
- ↑ Letters and other Writings of James Madison, Ⅳ, 131–133.
- ↑ G. Hunt, Writings of James Madison, Ⅸ (1910), 413, reproduces this passage as follows:
“According to one mode of presenting the text: it reads as follows: Congress shall have power To lay & collect taxes duties-imposts & excises; to pay the debts & provide for the C. D. & G. W. of the U. S. but all duties imposts & excises shall be uniform; to another mode the same with commas—vice semicolons.
“According to the other mode the text stands thus: Congress shall have power,
- To lay & col. tax, ds. imp. & excises;
- To pay the debts & provide for the Com. d. & G. W. of the U. S.;
- but all ds. imp. & excs. shall be uniform throug: the U. S.
and from this view of the text, it is inferred that the latter sentence conveys a distinct substantive power to provide for the C. D. & G. W.”
