the management of the government.
The difference is this: where the authority of the government is
general, it can create corporations _in all cases_; where it is
confined to certain branches of legislation, it can create
corporations only _in those cases_.

That the government of the United States can exercise only those
powers which are delegated by the constitution, is a proposition not
to be controverted; neither is it to be denied on the other hand, that
there are implied as well as express powers, and that the former are
as effectually delegated as the latter. For the sake of accuracy it
may be observed, that there are also _resulting_ powers. It will not
be doubted that if the United States should make a conquest of any of
the territories of its neighbours, they would possess sovereign
jurisdiction over the conquered territory. This would rather be a
result of the whole mass of the powers of the government, and from the
nature of political society, than a consequence of either of the
powers specially enumerated. This is an extensive case in which the
power of erecting corporations is either implied in, or would result
from some or all of the powers vested in the national government.

Since it must be conceded that implied powers are as completely
delegated as those which are expressed, it follows that, as a power of
erecting a corporation may as well be implied as any other thing, it
may as well be employed as an _instrument_ or _mean_ of carrying into
execution any of the specified powers as any other _instrument_ or
_mean_ whatever. The question in this as in every other case must be,
whether the mean to be employed has a natural relation to any of the
acknowledged objects or lawful ends of the government. Thus a
corporation may not be created by congress for superintending the
police of the city of Philadelphia, because they are not authorized to
regulate the police of that city; but one may be created in relation
to the collection of the taxes, or to the trade with foreign
countries, or between the states, or with the Indian tribes, because
it is in the province of the federal government to regulate those
objects; and because it is incident to a general sovereign or
legislative power to regulate a thing, to employ all the means which
relate to its regulation, to the best and greatest advantage.

A strange fallacy seems to have crept into the manner of thinking and
reasoning upon this subject. The imaginati