"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress....
Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."
~ James Madison
(Source: referring to a bill to subsidize cod fisherman introduced in the first year of the new Congress)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
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2 comments:
Someone needs to send this to President Obama! I find it so interesting and telling how much of what is happening now was predicted by the founders if there was not strict adherence to the constitution as it was written. We are so off the beaten path that most of us can not see the cliff that is approaching!
Maggie,
There is little doubt that our Founding Fathers would little recognize the government that they created, one is which every special interest group gets a subsidy and the freedom to choose mostly becomes the choice to become a victim.
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