* The enactment and enforcement of a number of
customs revenue laws drawn with a motive of maintaining a system of
protection, since the revenue law of 1789, are matters of history. * * *
Whatever we may think of the wisdom of a protection policy, we can not
hold it unconstitutional. So long as the motive of Congress and the
effect of its legislative action are to secure revenue for the benefit
of the general government, the existence of other motives in the
selection of the subject of taxes cannot invalidate Congressional
action."[273]

SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE

The grant of power to "provide * * * for the general welfare" raises a
two-fold question: How may Congress provide for "the general welfare"
and what is "the general welfare" which it is authorized to promote? The
first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his
Opinion on the Bank as follows: "* * * the laying of taxes is the
_power_, and the general welfare the _purpose_ for which the power is
to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes _ad libitum for
any purpose they please_; but only _to pay the debts or provide for the
welfare of the Union_. 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."[274] The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of
power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view
has been occasionally asserted,[275] Congress has not acted upon it and
the Courts have had no occasion to adjudicate the point.

Hamilton _v._ Madison

With respect to the meaning of "the general welfare" the pages of The
Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two
principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the
clause;[276] Madison contended that the powers of taxation and
appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely
instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more
than a power of self-support.[277] From an early date Congress has acted
upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for
subsidies[278] and for an ever increasing variety of "internal
improvements"[279] constructed by the Federal Government, had their
beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson.[280]
Since 1914, federal grants-in-aid,--sums of money apportioned among the
States for particular uses, often conditioned upon