6845. POWERS, The enumerated.—[further continued].
[By] the general phrase
“to make all laws necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the enumerated powers ” * * * the Constitution allows only
the means which are “necessary”, not those
which are merely “convenient” for effecting
the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of
construction be allowed to this phrase as to
give any non-enumerated power, it will go to
every one, for there is not one which ingenuity
may not torture into a
convenience
in some instance
or other, to
some one of so
long a list of enumerated powers. It would
swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce
the whole to one power. Therefore it
was that the Constitution restrained them to
the
necessary means, that is to say, to those
means without which the grant of power would
be nugatory.—
National Bank Opinion. Washington ed. vii, 558.
Ford ed., v, 287.
(1791)
See Manufactures.
