Implied Power

Drawn into the stream of undefined illusion
Those diamond dreams, they can't disguise the truth
--Level 42

In his monologue, Judge Nap notes that almost as soon as the Constitution was ratified, big government proponents such as Alexander Hamilton began suggesting that the federal government had 'implied powers'--powers that were not written in the Constitution yet somehow there.

It is upon the agument of 'implied power' that snippets of language from the Constitution, such as the 'clauses' of Article 1 Section 8 (e.g., the Commerce clause, the General Welfare clause), have been evoked by lawmakers and judges to justify the expansion of federal government scope.

Such a justification could make sense only to people with no reasoning power whatsoever (or, of course, to those who stand to benefit from more government power).

The Constitutional Convention lasted four months, during which time the framers debated and carefully specified the limitations to central government power. The subsequent ratification process took close to another debate-filled year.

It is likely that the Constitution would not have been ratified if there was not an agreement to amend the Constitution with even more specification of individual rights and the limits of government power. The last of these ten amendments states that powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution go to the individual states and their people.

How could a process that meticulously focused on limiting central government power produce a framework that can legitimately be interpreted as being open ended--granting government powers that heretofore had been unspecified? Stated differently, why would those involved in the Constitutional development and ratification process waste their time? Why debate and limit if the intent was to subsequently permit arbitrary expansion of power?

It makes no sense, of course. The Constitution was written and ratified because the people wanted hard restrictions on central government power.

Once this situation is thought thru, only those who reap windfalls from increased government power will be prone to conclude that 'implied powers' are valid.