The grant of power to "provide * * * for the general welfare" raises a two-fold question: How may Congress provide for "the general welfare" and what is "the general welfare" which it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his Opinion on the Bank as follows: "* * * the laying of taxes is the _power_, and the general welfare the _purpose_ for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes _ad libitum for any purpose they please_; but only _to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union_. In like manner, they are not _to do anything they please_ to provide for the general welfare, but only to _lay taxes_ for that purpose."[274] The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted,[275] Congress has not acted upon it and the Courts have had no occasion to adjudicate the point.
With respect to the meaning of "the general welfare" the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause;[276] Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support.[277] From an early date Congress has acted upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for subsidies[278] and for an ever increasing variety of "internal improvements"[279] constructed by the Federal Government, had their beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson.[280] Since 1914, federal grants-in-aid,--sums of money apportioned among the States for particular uses, often conditioned upon the duplication of the sums by the recipient State, and upon observance of stipulated restrictions as to its use--have become commonplace.[281]