otternell:
So to apply this idea of precision: they wish to Establish Justice, Provide for the common defense and Promote the General Welfare. The word Promote is the key: as promote means “To forward, further, encourage”. If per the Preamble, the federal government is only to encourage general welfare, then technically (you knew this was coming) all of the social safety net is against the constitution. If they wanted to “Provide for” the general welfare, they could have said that, but they didn’t.
Your friend is mistaken on two counts. The premable is not a grant of power, and an exercise of federal powers can’t be held unconstitutional because it violates the preamble.
We pass without extended discussion the suggestion that the particular section of the statute of Massachusetts now in question ( 137, chap. 75) is in derogation of rights secured by the preamble of the Constitution of the United States. Although that preamble indicates the general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution, it has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the government of the United States, or on any of its departments. Such powers embrace only those expressly granted in the body of the Constitution, and such as may be implied from those so granted. Although, therefore, one of the declared objects of the Constitution was to secure the blessings of liberty to all under the sovereign jurisdiction and authority of the United States, no power can be exerted to that end by the United States, unless, apart from the preamble, it be found in some express delegation of power, or in some power to be properly implied therefrom. 1 Story, Const. 462.
Jacobson v. Massachusetts , 197 U.S. 11 (1905).
The General Welfare Clause that your friend should be looking at is in Article I, Section 8, regarding congressional power to tax and spend. That section explicitly says that Congress has the power to provide for the general welfare:
“The 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 ”
Emphasis added. Moreover, Alexander Hamilton argued in the Federalist Papers that the discretion on what consituted the General Welfare for purposes of spending is solely within the purview of Congress:
It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper.
Federalist 21
pravnik you found the stuff I needed! I agree that the Articles of the Constitution clearly outweigh the preamble.
Thanks everyone for the good arguments!
Correction: should be Hamilton’s Report on Maunfactures .
ETA: Glad to help.