Those who object to the article,
therefore, as a part of the Constitution, can only mean that the FORM of
the provision is improper. But have they considered whether a better
form could have been substituted?
There are four other possible methods which the Constitution might have
taken on this subject. They might have copied the second article of the
existing Confederation, which would have prohibited the exercise of any
power not EXPRESSLY delegated; they might have attempted a positive
enumeration of the powers comprehended under the general terms
"necessary and proper"; they might have attempted a negative enumeration
of them, by specifying the powers excepted from the general definition;
they might have been altogether silent on the subject, leaving these
necessary and proper powers to construction and inference.
Had the convention taken the first method of adopting the second article
of Confederation, it is evident that the new Congress would be
continually exposed, as their predecessors have been, to the alternative
of construing the term "EXPRESSLY" with so much rigor, as to disarm the
government of all real authority whatever, or with so much latitude as
to destroy altogether the force of the restriction.
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