1159. CENTRALIZATION,
Advancing toward.—I told the President [Washington] that they [the Hamilton party] had now
brought forward a proposition, far beyond
every one ever yet advanced, and to which
the eyes of many were turned, as the decision
which was to let us know, whether we live
under a limited or an unlimited government,
* * * [to wit], that in the Report on Manufactures
which, under color of giving bounties
for the encouragement of particular manufactures,
meant to establish the doctrine,
that the power given by the Constitution to
collect taxes to provide for the general welfare
of the United States, permitted Congress to
take everything under their management
which they should deem for the public welfare,
and which is susceptible of the application
of money; consequently, that the subsequent
enumeration of their powers was not
the description to which resort must be had,
and did not at all constitute the limits of their
authority; that this was a very different question
from that of the Bank [of the United
States], which was thought an incident to an
enumerated power.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 104.
Ford ed., i. 177.
(Feb. 1792)
