general welfare" have a definite, safe, and useful
meaning. The idea of their forming an original grant, with unlimited
power, superseding every other grant, is abandoned. They will be
considered simply as conveying a right of appropriation, a right
indispensable to that of raising a revenue and necessary to expenditures
under every grant. By it, as already observed, no new power will be
taken from the States, the money to be appropriated being raised under
a power already granted to Congress. By it, too, the motive for giving
a forced or strained construction to any of the other specific grants
will in most instances be diminished and in many utterly destroyed.
The importance of this consideration can not be too highly estimated,
since, in addition to the examples already given, it ought particularly
to be recollected that to whatever extent any specified power may be
carried the right of jurisdiction goes with it, pursuing it through
all its incidents. The very important agency which this grant has in
carrying into effect every other grant is a wrong argument in favor of
the construction contended for. All the other grants are limited by
the nature of the offices which they have severally to perform, each
conveying a power to do a certain thing, and that only, whereas this is
coextensive with the great scheme of the Government itself. It is the
lever which raises and puts the whole machinery in motion and continues
the movement. Should either of the other grants fail in consequence of
any condition or limitation attached to it or misconstruction of its
powers, much injury might follow, but still it would be the failure of
one branch of power, of one item in the system only. All the others
might move on. But should the right to raise and appropriate the public
money be improperly restricted, the whole system might be sensibly
affected, if not disorganized. Each of the other grants is limited by
the nature of the grant itself; this, by the nature of the Government
only. Hence it became necessary that, like the power to declare war,
this power should be commensurate with the great scheme of the
Government and with all its purposes.

If, then, the right to raise and appropriate the public money is not
restricted to the expenditures under the other specific grants according
to a strict construction of their powers, respectively, is there no
limitation to it? Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the
money to any a