In like manner, they are not _to do anything
they please_ to provide for the general welfare, but only to _lay
taxes_ for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as
describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and
independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the
good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent
enumerations of power completely useless.
It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that
of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the
good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of
the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they
please.
It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will
bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some
meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which
would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal
power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up
straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as
means, these powers could not be carried into effect. It is known
that the very power now proposed _as a means_ was rejected as _an
end_ by the Convention which formed the Constitution.
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