A LIMITED GOVERNMENT
The objects sought by the American people in their aspirations for the preservation
of their liberties are well stated in the Preamble to the Constitution. But while the scope of these objectives recognizes the unlimited power of the people, the Constitution itself imposes severe limitations upon the government. In general, the national government is granted only such powers as are absolutely necessary for the discharge of purely national functions, such as could not be discharged by the States acting either separately or through interstate compacts.
New conditions and an uncertain future faced the people when they ratified the Constitution, and it was framed to meet the situation that confronted them. This was well set forth by Justice Story in Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 326:
“The Constitution unavoidably deals in general language. It did not suit the purposes of the people, in framing this great charter of our liberties, to provide for minute specifications of its powers or to declare the means by which those powers should be carried into execution. It was foreseen that this would be a perilous and difficult, if not an impracticable, task. The instrument was not intended to provide merely for the exigencies of a few years, but was to endure
through a long lapse of ages, the events of which were locked up in the inscrutable purposes of Providence."
The determination of the people to hold a check-rein upon the government they were creating is shown in the many prohibitions contained in the Constitution. Great reserve powers, many of them unexplored, are retained to the States and to the people. This is well
stated by the court in Livingston v. Van liven, 9 Johns. (N. Y.) 507:
“When the people create a single, entire government, they grant at once all the rights of sovereignty. The powers granted are indefinite and incapable of enumeration. Everything is granted that is not expressly reserved in the constitutional charter, or necessarily retained as inherent in the people. But when a
federal government is erected with only a portion of the sovereign power, the rule of construction is directly the reverse, and every power is reserved to the members that is not, either in express terms or by necessary implication, taken away from them, and vested exclusively in the federal head. This rule has not only been acknowledged by the most intelligent friends of the Constitution, but is plainly declared by the instrument itself."
No power to enact any statute is derived from the Preamble.
Although the powers of the national government are limited in number, they are not limited in degree. Wherever the people have granted a power to the
government it is a complete power, and that which is implied is as much a part of the Constitution as that which is expressed.
Experience in colonial governments and under the Confederation had taught the people that safety lay in preventing concentration of powers in any one authority. By separating the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and making each of
them a check upon the others, it was felt that all powers necessary could be entrusted to the government without danger of tyranny. But as a further precaution the people reserved to the States and to themselves all powers that were not entrusted to the national government; and in other clauses of the Bill of Rights they set barriers against encroachment upon individual liberty by any branch of this government.
By retaining large powers in the States the people erected a further barrier against encroachment upon their liberties by the central government they were creating. This division or balance of powers between the national government and the States has been the cause of endless debate and controversy.
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
SESQUICENTENNIAL COMMISSION
Established by Joint Resolution of the Congress of the United States, Approved August 23, 1935
