With the growth of our nation, the national government has come to perform a vast amount of service, as we have seen in earlier chapters, and to regulate the lives of the people in a multitude of ways little dreamed of by the makers of the Constitution.  This has been possible because of the principle of implied powers in the Constitution.  This means that some of the powers expressly granted in the Constitution have been broadly interpreted to imply powers not expressly stated.  There are certain clauses in the Constitution that especially lend themselves to such broad interpretation.  For example, after the enumeration of the powers which Congress may exercise, in section 8 of Article I, clause 18 of that section gives Congress power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers ...”  Another clause whose liberal interpretation has been responsible for much of the service performed by the national government is that giving it the power to regulate interstate commerce (Art.  I, sec. 8, clause 3).

In the early days of our government the Federalist party, under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton, proposed the creation of a national bank.  The Republican party under Jefferson opposed this because the Constitution did not expressly provide for it, and because it was feared that it would give the national government too much power.  But the “broad constructionists” argued that a national bank was a “necessary and proper” means to enable the national government “to borrow money on the credit of the United States” and to exercise other financial powers expressly granted in the Constitution.  The supreme court of the United States supported the latter view, and the national bank became a fact.

The building of roads and other internal improvements by the national government have always been opposed by the “strict constructionists,” except where roads were clearly “post-roads” (Article 1, section.8, clause 7).  But the “broad constructionists” argued that roads were “necessary and proper” to provide “for the common defense,” and also as a means “to regulate commerce among the several states.”

Most of the work that the national government has done for the promotion of the public health, such as the passage and enforcement of the “pure food and drugs act,” the inspection of livestock and of slaughterhouses, and the attempt to regulate child labor, has been done under the authority of the clause giving Congress power to regulate interstate commerce.

EXPANSION OF POWERS BY JUDICIAL DECISION

It has been the duty of the Supreme Court of the United States to decide finally whether much of the new service undertaken by the national government is in accordance with the Constitution or not, and this court has been responsible for most of the expansion of the service rendered, because of its liberal interpretation of the Constitution.