James Madison: Genius

To be honest, a post with this title deserves WAY more than one measly little quote, but this one is pretty astounding.  Here is the principle author of the Bill of Rights explaining why the General Welfare clause in the U.S. Constitution should never have been so broadly interpreted.  This was a warning that wasn't heeded:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."

Not bad, huh?

James Madison FTW, as usual.