If this is true, it's the kind of truth that comes to us only from divine revelation--because it sure doesn't appear in the text of the Constitution or the history of its framing. Historically, in fact, it's ludicrously anachronistic, like claiming that the telescope was invented in 1608 so that people could watch Apollo 13 land on the moon. There was no federal government to speak of in 1787. "Congress" was a feckless, ludicrous farce. The concern that brought delegates to Philadelphia was that, under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was too weak. Many of the Framers were close to panic because the Confederation Congress was unable to levy taxes, pay the nation's debts, live up to its treaty obligations, regulate commerce, or restrain the greedy, predatory state governments. The Union seemed on the verge of splitting into tiny republics, which would quickly be recolonized by Britain, France, or Spain.







As early as 1780, Alexander Hamilton (one of the authors of The Federalist) wrote to James Duane that "[t]he fundamental defect [in the Articles of Confederation] is a want of power in Congress. It is hardly worth while to show in what this consists, as it seems to be universally acknowledged, or to point out how it has happened, as the only question is how to remedy it."

In April 1787, James Madison, second author of The Federalist, wrote to George Washington his aim for a new Constitution: "The national government should be armed with positive and compleat authority in all cases which require uniformity." (Madison also wanted a rule that no state law could take effect until Congress explicitly approved it.)

Shortly before, Washington had written to John Jay, "I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several States." Jay, third author of The Federalist, made clear to Washington his own view: "What Powers should be granted to the Government so constituted is a Question which deserves much Thought--I think the more the better--the States retaining only so much as may be necessary for domestic Purposes; and all their principal Officers civil and military being commissioned and removeable by the national Governmt." (Note the last part: State executives would be appointed by the federal government.)

As for the Constitution's text, if it was "intended" to limit the federal government, it sure doesn't say so. Article I § 8, a Homeric catalog of Congressional power, is the longest and most detailed in the Constitution. It includes the "Necessary and Proper" Clause, which delegates to Congress the power "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."