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