It was evidently impossible to have subjected this grant in either branch to such restriction without exposing the Government to very serious embarrassment.  How carry it into effect?  If the grant had been made in any degree dependent upon the States, the Government would have experienced the fate of the Confederation.  Like it, it would have withered and soon perished.  Had the Supreme Court been authorized, or should any other tribunal distinct from the Government be authorized, to impose its veto, and to say that more money had been raised under either branch of this power—­that is, by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises—­than was necessary, that such a tax or duty was useless, that the appropriation to this or that purpose was unconstitutional, the movement might have been suspended and the whole system disorganized.  It was impossible to have created a power within the Government or any other power distinct from Congress and the Executive which should control the movement of the Government in this respect and not destroy it.  Had it been declared by a clause in the Constitution that the expenditures under this grant should be restricted to the construction which might be given of the other grants, such restraint, though the most innocent, could not have failed to have had an injurious effect on the vital principles of the Government and often on its most important measures.  Those who might wish to defeat a measure proposed might construe the power relied on in support of it in a narrow and contracted manner, and in that way fix a precedent inconsistent with the true import of the grant.  At other times those who favored a measure might give to the power relied on a forced or strained construction, and, succeeding in the object, fix a precedent in the opposite extreme.  Thus it is manifest that if the right of appropriation be confined to that limit, measures may oftentimes be carried or defeated by considerations and motives altogether independent of and unconnected with their merits, and the several powers of Congress receive constructions equally inconsistent with their true import.  No such declaration, however, has been made, and from the fair import of the grant, and, indeed, its positive terms, the inference that such was intended seems to be precluded.

Many considerations of great weight operate in favor of this construction, while I do not perceive any serious objections to it.  If it be established, it follows that the words “to provide for the common defense and general welfare” have a definite, safe, and useful meaning.  The idea of their forming an original grant, with unlimited power, superseding every other grant, is abandoned.  They will be considered simply as conveying a right of appropriation, a right indispensable to that of raising a revenue and necessary to expenditures under every grant.  By it, as already observed, no new power will be taken from the States, the money to be appropriated being raised under a power already granted to Congress.